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Princetan Cheologiral Seminary 


Boba le se 

Campbell, James Mann, 1840- 
Lg 2.65 

After Pentecost, what? 


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By James M. Campbell 


Mr. Campbell writes in glowing 
and epigrammatic sentences. His 
style is marked by nervous spir- 
itual energy. Every page almost 
will furnish admirable quotaitons. 
—The Occident. 


The Indwelling Christ. 


Second edition. 12mo, cloth, 75 cents. 

This is a strong and wholesome presenta- 
tion of the great Christian truth which is sug- 
gested in the title. The style is simple and 
clear, the tone is spiritual. One who reads 
these pages thoughtfully cannot but find in 
them quickening and inspiration.—Thbe Sunday 
School Times. 


Unto The Uttermost. 
A Study of the Redemptive Possibilities of the 
Present Life. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

A volume of decided originality and merit; 
the style perspicuous and forcible; the illustra- 
tions interesting, and the thought in the main 
is sound, and always stimulating.’’ Brb/torheca 
Sacra. 


Freminc H. Revert Company, 
PUBLISHERS 


After Pentecost, What? 


A Discussion of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in its 
Relation to Modern Christological 
Thought 


By 
James M. Campbell 


Author of «‘Unto the Uttermost’? and «“The Indwelling 
Christ”’ 


Fleming H. Revell Company 
New York Toronto Chicago 
MDCCCXCVII 


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The white wings of the Holy Ghost 
Stoop, seen or unseen, o’er the heads of all.” 
—WHITTIER, 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/afteroentecostwhO00camp 


PREFACE. 


In the following pages—which contain the 
substance of a course of lectures given before the 
Summer School of the University of Chicago, 
and the Macatawa Park Assembly, Michigan— 
an attempt is made to bring the doctrine of the 
Holy Spirit into harmony with the enlarged 
Christological thought of the present day. The 
place which the doctrine of the Holy Spirit occu- 
pies in the self-revelation of God to man is just 
beginning to be appreciated. It is not too much 
to say that no other doctrine within the circle of 
evangelical truth has suffered a more complete 
eclipse. Every age has its supreme problem. 
With the early church the supreme problem was 
the doctrine of the Sonship of Christ in its re- 
lation to the Godhead; with the church of to-day 
_ the supreme problem is the doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit in its relation to the economy of redemp- 
tion; and in so far as this problem is kept in the 
forefront will the church be in the line of the 
divine purpose in the present day development of 
truth. 

It is noteworthy that “in the earliest Christian 
literature— that is, in the Apostolic Fathers—the 


5 


Preface. 


allusions to the Holy Spirit are all in the interest 
of spiritual religion.”* Metaphysics had not yet 
come in to neutralize faith. Not until the power- 
ful influence of Augustine had forced the idea of 
the divine immanence to yield to the idea of the 
divine transcendence was the deity of the Holy 
Spirit assailed,or His presence in the Christian,as 
the principle of spiritual life, questioned. Before 
the great schism which divided the church into 
East and West, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was 
looked upon from a practical view-point. In the 
baptismal formula the Holy Spirit was acknowl- 
edged as one with the Father, but no attempt was 
made to construct a theory of His person and work 
out of the scanty material furnished by the unex- 
plained facts of Scripture. It was considered 
sufficient to appeal to Christian consciousness in 
evidence of His continual presence, and to regen- 
erated lives in evidence of Ilis divine power. 
“The Fathers of the church,” says Canon Gore, 
“appealed to experience because Christianity, as 
they knew, is essentially not a past event, but a 
present life; a life first manifested in Christ, and 
then perpetuated in His church.?* 

To the practical ground upon which it rested 
in the early, undivided church, must the doctrine 


*The Doctrine of the floly Spirit,” p. 256.—George Smeaton, D.D. 
"Lux Mundi,” p. 264. 
6 


Preface. 


of the Holy Spirit be brought back if its true sig- 
nificance would be appreciated. Notas a question 
of polemics, but as a question of experience; not 
as a question of dogma, but as a question of life 
must it be reéxamined by the church of to-day; and 
re€xamined, moreover, in all that divine simplic- 
ity of heart and mind which belongs to “ babes,” 
to whom the Father is pleased to make known the 
things which are hidden from “the wise and the 
understanding.” 


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iT; 
III. 
LV. 
Ve 
VI. 
Vil, 
VIII. 
IX. 
xX, 
XI. 
XII. 
XIII. 
a LV 
XV. 
XVI. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PEN- 


TECOST. ; 2 ; ; 

A SPIRITUAL CHRIST, . A : : é 
A SPIRITUAL Gop. , : : : : 
SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. . ; : : A 
A SPIRITUAL APPREHENSION OF TRUTH. 

AN INFLUX OF SPIRITUAL LIFE, . ; 5 


THE SPIRITUAL MAN. : : 
SPIRITUAL HOLINESS. . 5 : i : 
SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY, . ; 3 ; 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS, . 
SPIRITUAL OPERATIONS, . ; : i 


THE IMPARTATION OF SPIRITUAL POWER. . 
THE PRODUCTION OF SPIRITUAL WORKS. . 


THE FORMATION OF A SPIRITUAL SOCIETY, . 


II 
16 
31 
47 
62 
80 
95 


108 
122 
137 
153 


210 


- 228 


246 


THE INAUGURATION OF SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS. 263 


Tue ESTABLISHMENT OF A SPIRITUAL KINGDOM, 281 


CHAPRTERNI: 


THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PENTECOST. INTRO- 
DUCTORY. 

“There are many who are still waiting, praying and 
longing for the coming of the Spirit; not knowing that the 
Spirit came eighteen hundred years ago, with a mighty 
rushing wind and tongues of flame; that He has never left 
the church; that there is therefore no reason for Him to 
come again.”’ R. W. DALE. 

“Back to Pentecost” is a cry which it ill befits 
_ the church of to-day to raise. Instead of going 
back to Pentecost, would it not be wiser and bet- 
ter for the church to bring Pentecost into the 
present? Christianity is something more than a 
history ; it is a life—a life that is in a process of 
endless development. Its face is not set towards 
the past, but towards the future; it does not look 
behind on a faint and fading sunset, but forward 
upon a glowing and growing sunrise. 

Viewed as a historic event, Pentecost is a thing 
of the past. It can never come back again. Its rush- 
ing mighty wind, its miraculous gifts are gone. 
They belonged to an initial condition of things 
that required outward signs and credentials. 
Christianity is now an established fact, and has 
no need of special attestation. It is its own cre- 
dential. But while Pentecost as a historic fact is 

jt 


After Pentecost, What? 


past, all that was spiritual and essential in it re- 
mains. ‘The heavens that then were opened are 
kept open, that the Spirit may continually descend 
upon waiting hearts, and that the church of to- 
day may enjoy a perpetual Pentecost. 

‘The outward hath gone, but in glory and power 

The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour; 


Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame 
On the heart’s secret altar is burning the same,” 


Pentecost was not an isolated and unrelated 
event. It was not something separate and apart 
from all that went before. It was the culminating 
act in an eonial process of redemptive activity. 
It was the final step in the descent of the divine 
into the human. It marked an epoch in the ages, 
the significance of which we are just beginning 
to appreciate. It changed the world’s history ; 
it lifted the world heavenward, penetrated it with 
the life of God, and hid within its heart a power 
which contains the potency and promise of its 7 
‘complete redemption. nae world can never go 
back to where it was before the Spirit came. A 
vantage ground has been gained which can never 
be lost. The world is coming to its best. Under 
the favoring skies of spiritual privilege and power 
its richest vintage is ripening. The dispensation 
now running its glorious course is the harvest 
time of all the ages. 

I2 


The Significance of Pentecost. 


The truth for which Pentecost stands requires 
to be specially emphasized in the present day to 
counteract the tendency towards materialism in 
philosophy and life; and also to counteract the 
tendency towards formalism in religion. Onthe 
one hand we have a science which denies the ex- 
istence of spiritual agencies and shuts God out of 
His world, combined with a worldly spirit which 
takes account of the seen and tangible only, and 
ignores the spiritual in life; and on the other hand 
we have a religion which shows a decided ten- 
dency to decorous formality in worship, and to 
exclusive absorption in mere outward activities 
and in material and humanitarian interests, to the 
neglect ofthe cultivation of inward life, from which 
all the streams of religious activity are fed. How 
needful, therefore, it is tosee that the Holy Spirit 
is here to oppose and to overcome this downward 
drift! The ultimate supremacy of the spiritual 
can be hopefully looked for, because He is ade- 
quate to the task which He has undertaken of lift- 
ing a submerged world out of the slime-pit of 
materialism into which it has fallen, and of keep- 
ing open within the church the springs of spirit- 
ual life which are in constant danger of being 
choked up with things good in themselves. The 
advent of the Spirit means that there is now 
present in the world a divine power working for 


13 


After Pentecost, What? 


spiritual results, delivering souls from the thrall- 
dom of the sensuous, scattering the fog-banks 
which shut spiritual realities from view , regener- 
ating human nature, transforming human society, 
and making all things new by bringing in the 
reign of the spiritual. 

The two pivotal events in historical Christian- 
ity are the coming of Christ in the flesh, and 
the coming of the Spirit; the one being the be- 
ginning of the special manifestation of God to 
man, the other the means of its continuance and 
completion. By the coming of the Spirit the end 
of the coming of Christ is realized. « Whatever 
increase Christ’s kingdom has received from the 
beginning down to these times, it has received 
through the power of the Comforter.”* And 
whatever increase it is to receive in the future 
must come from the same source. To Him Chris- 
tianity owes its vitality and victorious power. 
Through the manifested life of Christ He is work- 
ing unremittingly for salvation. Immanent in 
the world, and in the soul of man, as a vitalizing 
and renovating power, He is carrying on an age- 
long work of redemption, which is brought to 
its consummation by all flesh being made the 
dwelling-place of God. 

Christians of to-day require to be reminded that 


» * «The Mission of the Comforter.”—Hare, p. 181, 


14 


The Significance of Pentecost. 


they have been born after Pentecost. They forget 
that the new efHlux of the effluent life of God, by 
which the kingdom of the Spirit was to be ush- 
ered in, has taken place. They often take an 
ante-pentecostal look upon the world; they occupy 
an ante-pentecostal plane of privilege; they settle 
down to an ante-pentecostal level of living. They 
live back in the old dispensation in which the 
disciples lived before “ the great day of the Lord,” 
when the glory of heaven burst like a new sun 
upon the earth. So faras any special elevation of 
vision or enrichment of experience is concerned, 
Pentecost might never have happened. Upon 
modern Christians there liés no more pressing 
duty than the study of those questions of vital 
interest which gather around this epochal event; 
such questions, for example, as, What does Pente- 
cost mean with regard to the fulfillment of God’s 
purpose? What place does it occupy in the proc- 
ess of redemptive development? What difference 
has it made to the world that it has come? 
What difference does it make to us that we are 
living after it rather than before it? After Pente- 


cost—what? 


15 


GHAPTER SIT 
A SPIRITUAL CHRIST. 


‘“‘It is the historical task of Christianity to assume with 
every succeeding age a fresh metamorphosis, and to be for- 
ever spiritualizing more and more her understanding of the 


Christ and of salvation.”’ 
AMIEL’S JOURNAL. 


Tue advent of the Spirit was the spiritual ad- 
vent of Christ--the coming of Christ to dwell 
in the hearts of His people by His Spirit, whom 
He communicates. It was not “ Christ transfig- 
ured into spirit,” as Tholuck puts it, but Christ 
in another form returning to His own—Christ 
continued to date. No more serious mistake 
could be made than to regard the Holy Spirit as 
supplying the lack of an absent Christ. He is 
rather the “bodiless divinity,” by whom Christ, 
no longer with us in the flesh, is made present 
and omnipresent. 

When Christ was about to leave His disciples 
He distinctly promised that He would come to 
them again. His second coming, which was to 
be personal and permanent, was to take place 
within a brief period. “ Yeta little while, and 
He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry.” 
In the plainest possible words Jesus taught that 
the consummation looked for might be expected 


16 


A Spiritual Christ. 


within the life-time of many who were then living 
on the earth. “ Verily I say unto you, there be 
some of them that stand here that shall in no wise 
taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming 
in His kingdom.” Vain is every effort to break 
the force of these words by making them palter 
with us in a double sense; “ keeping their promise 
to the ear while breaking it to the heart.” They 
can bear but one meaning, and that meaning he 
that runs may read. 

Did Christ keep His promise? Itis no answer 
to say that the coming of Christ is a constantly 
recurring event—that He is always coming; still 
less is it an answer to say that His promise was 
fulfilled in His coming at the destruction of 
Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem was 
not the second advent, but was merely its outward 
sign. The advent itself was spiritual. In the 
Spirit Christ returned that through His presence 
and power His kingly rule might beset up and 
His dominion over the spirit of man _ estab- 
lished. His return in the Spirit constitutes the 
decisive event in His work of redemption, the 
event to which His advent in the flesh was pre- 
liminary and preparatory, the event by which the 
purpose of His earthly mission was to find its ac- 
complishment. The final apocalypse of His 
kingly glory at the end of this world-age, will be 


| 


After Pentecost, What? 


simply the unveiling of glory of the hidden king, 
who is now enthroned in the seat of power. 
This visible manifestation of His presence when 
He cometh inthe clouds of heaven, and when 
every eye shall see Him, will not be the inaugu- 
ration, but the culmination of His kingdom; it will 
be that final epiphany for which we longingly 
look when we utter the prayer, “Come, Lord 
Jesus,come quickly.”* But the question of prime 
importance, the question which most deeply con- 
cerns us at present, the question around which 
center our most vital interests, the question upon 
which hangs the fulfillment of our dearest hopes, 
is, Has Christ really come back? Is He really 
here? Amid the toilsome duties and abounding 
trials of the present life may we enjoy the sweet 
consciousness of His abiding and inspiring pres- 
ence? Or has He retired to some distant heaven, 
dooming us to wander on as orphans through a 
forlorn and friendless world? In a word, is His 
second, His spiritual advent, a blessed hope or a 
glorious fact? Is it something for which we are 


yet to watch and wait, or is it a present reality 


*The distinction which Scripture makes between the Jarousza,‘‘the 
presence,” and the afoka’upsis,‘‘the revelation” of theipresence, has 
not always been carefully observed. The farousza is spiritual and 
invisible, the afoka upszs is outward and visible. The Jarousza is an 
experience, the afokalupsis isa hope. We rejoice in the presence 
of the Lord (Matt, 28:20), we wait in hope for ‘‘the revelation of 
the Lord Jesus from heaven”’ (2 Thess. 1: 7; 1 Peter 1:13). Fora 
fuller discussion of this subject see Chapter XII. of author's ‘‘/x- 
dwelling Christ.”* 

18 


A Spiritual Christ. 


in the experience of which we are continually to 
rejoice? 

At the hour of parting Jesus had said, “ Now 
ye have sorrow, but I will see you again, and 
your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man 
taketh from you.” For the pang of parting there 
was to be an overpayment of delight when inthe 
coming of the Spirit the absent Lord was to re- 
turn. He would see His disciples again, al- 
though they would not see Him. His unseen 
presence would be known as the presence of a 
concealed magnet is known by the steel which 
it attracts to itself; or as the presence of the ver- 
nal sun is known by the underground roots that 
feel the thrill of his life-giving touch. In His 
presence, unseen but not unfelt, there would be 
fullness of joy; joy which no man could take 
away, unless he took away the living, loving, 
personal Christ, of whose presence that joy was 
the efluence. Into participation of that abiding 
joy which comes from the abiding presence of 
the Lord all Christians are called. Christ has 
kept His tryst; He has come again as He said, 
and He has come to stay. His promise to be with 
His disciples is fulfilled in the Holy Spirit. By 
the Holy Spirit His presence is made real and 
continual. “Joy tothe world, the Lord is come!” 
—come to live in the heart of the believer, come 


wg, 


After Pentecost, What? 


to fill the world with His life. In His gracious 
presence all who have dwelt in the chilling dark- 
ness of hope deferred may forever sun their 
souls. 

In the return of Christ in the Spirit is found 
the explanation of His departure from earth and 
His ascension to heaven. We can sympathize 
with the perplexity of the Indian chief who, 
when present at a religious gathering,asked, “ Did 
you ever see the Great Spirit or His Son? You 
said that His Son came down from heaven, and 
dwelt among the white men, and that He went up 
again. What did He go up for? Red Cloud wants 
to find out.” Many besides “ Red Cloud” seem not 
to have found out the reason why Christ tore 
Himself away from His disciples, and went up 
to His native heaven. The only satisfactory 
answer that can be given is that He went up that 
Iie might come down again; He went up in one 
form that He might come down in another and 
better form; He ascended out of the weakness 
of the flesh that He might descend in the power 
of the Spirit; He went away that He might, 
on His return, get nearer to His people than He 
had ever been before. Scripture always traces 
an intimate connection between His departure 
and ascension and the descent of the Spirit. On 
the day of Pentecost Peter exclaimed, “ Being 

20 


A Spiritual Christ. 


exalted, He hath shed forth this which ye now 
see and hear.” As the Roman emperors caused 
perfume to be rained down upon the people 
through the silken awning of the amphitheater, 
the ascended Christ hath shed forth the Holy 
Spirit upon the world like a shower of fragrant 
rain. And blessed be God,we are now under the 
shower! 

Through the descent of Christ by the Spirit 
and in the Spirit, the approach of God to man is 
consummated. Historic Christianity presents a 
progressive series of movements on the part of 
God towards man. Of these divine movements 
manward the coming of Christ in the Spirit is 
the last and closest. God came close to man in 
the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, He comes 
still closer in the manifestation of Christ in the 
Spirit. Among men spirit contact is the closest; 
and nearer to man God cannot get than when 
He comes into vital touch with his spirit, in the 
Spirit of His Son. The procession of the Spirit 
from the Father and from the Son represents the 
final outgoing of that eternal love which is the 
central element in the divine nature, the primal 
source of every movement that has taken place in 
the redemption of man. In the work of the 
Holy Spirit that eternal love is expressed in- 
wardly, which in the Cross is expressed out- 

21 


After Pentecost, What ? 


wardly. In all the activities of the Spirit within 
the heart of man, the seeking and saving love of 
Christ is made manifest. Through the Spirit— 
to whom every secret avenue of approach is open 
—Christ presses near to man; moving upon his 
conscience that He may woo him from ways of 
evil to a better life. He seeks even where He is 
not sought. What is the great truth enshrined 
in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, if not this: 
Christ working on man from within; Christ 
knocking at the inmost door of the human spirit; 
Christ engaging in a search after man, a search 
which is never abandoned until in every soul is 
awakened a consciousness of His presence, and 
to every soul is brought the proffer of His effi- 
cacious help? 

This interior work of the Holy Spirit by 
which the outward revelation of Christ in the 
Word becomes an inward revelation of Christ in 
the heart; this personal work of the Holy Spirit 
without which all that went before in the work 
of Christ would be incomplete and ineffective, 
finds a fitting illustration in the old romantic 
legend concerning Blondel, the French minstrel. 
Blondel, it is said, accompanied Richard the Lion- 
Heart, King of England, to Palestine. On 
their way home Richard was seized and impris- 
oned by Leopold, duke of Austria. The faithful 

22 


A Spiritual Christ. 


minstrel resolved to find the place in which his 
royal master was confined. For years he wan- 
dered through Europe in disguise; and at length 
coming to an ivy-clad castle in Austria, as he 
played upon his harp and sang before the dungeon 
bars, a well known voice took up the song and 
carried it to the end. ‘The king was discovered, 
and Blondel, returning with all speed to England, 
secured from his subjects the means of his ransom. 
Thus the spirit of man, immured in the prison- 
house of sense, hears faint notes of a heavenly 
voice in which is expressed the passionate long- 
ing of a breaking heart to find the lost object of 
its love; echoes of a better life are waked up; 
the remembrance of a former kingly state is re- 
called; the unextinguished desire for the better 
things of the kingdom is fanned to fervent heat; 
and the soul, responding promptly and eagerly to 
the divine voice, is drawn out of its captivity into 
the glorious light and liberty of the children of 
God. 

The coming of Christ in the Spirit was for the 
purpose of finding man, and establishing spiritual 
communication with him. Through the Spirit 
spiritual commerce is carried on between Christ 
and man; through the Spirit spiritual messages 
are sent from Christ to man. The main advan-, 


tage accruing from the departure of Christ con-— 


23 


After Pentecost, What? 


sists in the spiritual manifestation of Himself 
which His departure made possible. While He 
was with His disciples they were like weak chil- 
dren clinging to the hand of a father; when He 
was taken away they learned to walk alone. The 
blossom dropped off that the fruit might appear; 
the earthly Christ faded from sight that the spirit- 
ual Christ might be revealed; the visible hand 
was withdrawn that the unseen hand might hence- 
forth guide and sustain in all life’s dark and diffi- 
cult ways. 

Speaking of the changed view of Christ which 
the coming of the Spirit has effected, Paul says, 
“We henceforth know no man after the flesh; 
even though we have known Christ after the 
flesh, yet now we know Him so no more.” (2 
Cor. v. 16.) Humanity has become spiritualized. 
Men are not known after the flesh-standard, but 
after the standard of spiritual worth. And, what 
is of more concern in the present discussion, 
Christ is spiritualized. All worldly or fleshly 
ideas concerning Him and His kingdom are put 
forever away. Whether or not Paul knew Christ 
¢z the flesh, we need not stop to inquire; what 
he asserts is that one time he knew Him after 
the flesh. A contrast is drawn between then and 
now. Then he knew Him as a Jew, now he knew 
Him as the Jew’s Messiah; then he knew Him 


24 


A Spiritual Christ. 


as a crucified criminal, now he knew Him as a 
crucified Savior; then he knew Him as the Son 
of Mary, now he knew Him as the Son of God; 
then he knew Him as 


‘‘A silent man before his foes, 
A weary man and full of woes,”’ 


now he knew Himas the King of Glory to whom 
the everlasting gates had opened, and by whose 
return in the power of the Spirit the kingdom of 
righteousness was to be established on the earth. 

This deeper view of Christ furnishes us with 
an answer to the question, What kind of a Christ 
have we now? The Christ of to-day, the Christ 
who is now present in the world, is a spiritual 
Christ. With the outward eye we cannot behold 
Him. We do not even know how He looked 
when in the flesh, for no portrait of his outward 
appearance has been preserved. We know Him 
spiritually. We follow Him, walking by faith 
and not by sight. He speaks to our spiritual 
nature, and not to our senses. He is the Christ 
of the conscience, of the reason, and of the heart. 
After a spiritual manner the Holy Spirit is re- 
vealing Him to us, giving a spiritual interpretation 
of His words and works, making known the 
spiritual meaning of the external facts of His life, 
and superseding all that was outward and tempo- 
rary in His self-manifestation in the flesh by a rev- 


25 


After Pentecost, What? 


elation of the essential glory of His divine nature, 
The veil has been taken away that “the brightness 
of the Father’s glory” may be seen shining in 
His face; the last limitation of His earth-life has 
been removed that He may find free access to the 
spirit of man; the last barrier of His earthly en- 
vironment has been broken down that His atoning 
love may have free course to every heart. Those 
who know Christ as He is, know Him as the 
Christ who is laying His healing hand upon 
stricken souls; the Christ who is feeding hungry 
hearts with the bread of His truth and love; the 
Christ who is in the world as its immanent life; 
the Christ who is in the believer as a well of water 
springing up into everiasting life; the Christ 
who is in the church continually supplying it with 
omnific energy by which miracles of saving power 
may be wrought.* 

In the revelation of the spiritual Christ by the 
Holy Spirit is fulfilled the promise, “He shall 
glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine and shall 
declare it unto you.” “As the Son glorifies the 
Father, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son,” says 


wi he Ritschlian school of theology, in its laudable desire to rest the 
Christian’s experience of Christ upon a historic foundation, has 


known by the Spirit in the inmost being of the believer. And in ig- 
noring what in Christ transcends historical limits it has failed to take 
Him at his full worth. 

26 


— a 


A Spiritual Christ. 


Bengel. Christ is glorified when by the Spirit 
He is spiritually revealed. The external facts 
of His life may be known, where Christ Himself 
—the real Christ—has not been discovered. This 
is implied in the declaration, “No one can say 
that Jesus is Christ, but by the Holy Spirit.” 
Apart from the inward illumination of the Holy 
Spirit He may be known in His historical mani- 
festation as a son of man, but notin His essential 
divinity as the Son of God. The Holy Spirit 
alone can make Him known to the spiritual con- 
sciousness as the spiritual Christ. And only the 
Holy Spirit can reveal the spiritual import of His 
atoning sacrifice. “By one offering He hath 
perfected them that are sanctified. _Whereof also 
the Holy Spirit isa witness tous.” (Heb. x. 14.) 
The purpose for which the Holy Spirit came 
down from heaven was not merely to witness to 
the fact of the atonement; but to take the “things 
of Christ” and show them unto us in all the full- 
ness of their spiritual significance. This He is 
now doing. The measureless meaning of the 
things concerning Christ which lies concealed 
from mortal eyes, He is increasingly revealing. 
He is giving to the world larger and truer con- 
ceptions of Christ, than it ever had before; He 
is giving deeper and ever deeper views of the 
facts of His earthly life; thus winning for Him 


A} 


After Pentecost, What? 


a wider and loftier homage, and inspiring towards 
Him reverential love out of which the noblest 
hymns of adoration and praise are born. It is 
the spiritual Christ that He holds up as the true 
object of worship; and not the least service that 
He renders is that of enabling us to look with 
eagle eyes at His dazzling brightness. We are 
said to be “strengthened with power through the 
Spirit of the Father in the inward man; that 
Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, to the 
end that we, being rooted and grounded in love, 
may be strong to apprehend with all the saints 
what is the breadth and length and height and 
depth,and to know the love of Christ which pass- 
eth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the 
fullness of God.” (Eph. iii. 16-19.) From this 
deeper apprehension of Christ through the power 
of the Spirit comes the reflection of His glory, 
and from the reflection of His glory comes spirit- 
ual transformation. “We all, with unveiled 
face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the 
Lord, are transformed into the same image from 
glory to glory, evenas from the Lord the Spirit.” 
(2:Corill ica) 

This higher revelation of Christ, which the 
Spirit is now giving, and which marks progress 
from the physical to the spiritual, from the visible 
to the invisible, and from the local to the universal, 


28 


A Spiritual Christ. 


comes last. “That is not first which is spiritual, 
but that which is natural.” First a Christ who 
walks on the earth, then a Christ who lives in 
the heart; first a human brother, then a divine 
Savior; first a localized person, then a universal 
presence. When the normal order of develop- 
ment is followed this revelation of the divine in 
the human comes gradually. There are special 
cases, like that of Paul, where the Lord of Glory 
is revealed in the Son of Man suddenly and start- 
lingly, as with a lightning flash, and the human 
side of Christ’s nature is for a time shut almost 
entirely out of sight;* but that is not the usual 
way. The usual way is that followed in the child. 
The child begins with a Christ who is known 
after the flesh, and it requires long and _ patient 
instruction, backed up by the help of the co-oper- 
ating Spirit, to bring him to appreciate the higher 
vision of Christ. At first Christ is the gentle 
Jesus, a human friend, a perfect man, by whose 
love and tenderness the heart is taken captive; 
and it is only by gradual stages that the mind 
penetrates through the human to the divine until 
it finds at length in the Jesus of Gospel story the 
soul’s Redeemer and Lord. The spiritual lesson 
is always the last one to be learned, but learned 
in some way it must be before Christ can take 


*This idea is well brought out in Chap. IV. of Dr. George Mathe- 
son’s ‘‘Spiritual Development of St. Paul.” 


a 


After Pentecost, What? 


His rightful place in the thoughts and lives of 
men. It is not enough to believe in a Christ 
who lived and died; we must believe also in a 
Christ who lives and reigns. “It is Christ who 
died, yea rather who is risen again, who also 
liveth to make intercession for us,” is the ex- 
pression of a faith in which the spiritual has be- 
come full-grown. And when the Christ who 
could die is seen to be also the Christ who has 
conquered death, and is alive for evermore, the 
ransomed of the Lord march to Zion, to the 
music of His name, with everlasting joy upon 
their heads. 


30 


Cas ated Ra Dy Rood A 
A SPIRITUAL GOD. 


‘fT feel that His embrace 

Slides down by thrills through all things made, 

Through sight and sound of every place; 

As if my tender mother laid 

On my shut lips her kisses’ pressure, 

Half-waking me at night; and said, 

‘Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?’”’ 

Mrs. BROWNING. 
IN giving a spiritual Christ Pentecost gave a 
spiritual God. When God was revealed in the 
Spirit He was revealed as spirit. Strictly speak- 
ing, Pentecost did not give anew God, but it gave 
anew and sublimed conception of God; it did 
not give a better God, but it gave a better un- 
derstanding of God. The incarnation was God 
manifest in flesh, Pentecost was God manifest in 
spirit; the incarnation was God dwelling with 
man, Pentecost was God dwelling in man. By 
the incarnation God revealed Himself openly in 
the world, by the Spirit He reveals Himself se- 
cretly inthe soul; by the incarnation He lived for 
a season among men, by the Spirit He lives per- 
petually in man. 
The revelation of God in the Spirit lifts into the 

light an aspect of the Godhead which is in con- 
stant danger of being obscured. By bringing 


31 


After Pentecost, What? 


the age-long process of divine self-manifestation 
to its highest stage of development it rounds out 
to completeness the idea of God as spiritual. 
When God makes Himself known in the Spirit 
the revelation of Himself to man reaches its 
highest form. His effort to disclose Himself can 
go no further. 

Owing to the entanglement of the doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit with speculative theories touching 
the Trinity—an entanglement from which it is 
now happily being cut loose—there was a long 
period during which the simple Scripture teach- 
ing upon this important subject was greatly ob- 
scured. The church is, however, coming to see 
that whatever difficulties the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity, viewed as a metaphysical problem, may pre- 
sent to the ordinary mind, its sweet reasonableness 
is at once apparent when it is approached upon 
the practical side—the side upon which it ever 
finds a glad response in Christian experience. 
The contention of Abelard that it is “a necessary 
idea of reason,” may have but little force to many 
to whom it isa necessity of the heart. There 
are those to whom the subtleties of the schoolmen 
are insoluble riddles who can see how the one 
self-existent being should manifest Himself. to 
His children in a variety of ways. Taken simply 
to express the threeness, or the three-foldness of 


32 


A Spiritual God. 


the one divine Being, the names Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit are full of precious significance. 
But, instead of saying Father, Son and Spirit are 
one God, we ought tosay there is one God, who 
is Father, Son and Spirit. The Father is God 
in universal relations, the Son is God in reve- 
lation; the Holy Spirit is God in operation. 
“God manifests Himself in the Son,” says Van 
Osterzee, “but communicates His life through 
the Holy Spirit.” The Son is the self-revealing 
God, the Spirit is the self-communicating God. 
alaethe: eather, says Dr. R. WW: Dale; “God 
personally transcends the life and thought of man ; 
in the Son God is personally revealed to man; 
in the Spirit God is immanent in the higher life 
of man.”* If love be the immanent power “ by 
which Deity evolves into a Trinity,” in the Father 
we have the original fountain of love, in the Son 
we have love revealing itself, in the Holy Spirit 
we have love communicating itself. God as love 
could not remain in solitude or inactivity. The 
longing of divine love to find expression explains 
the incarnation; the longing of divine love to 
impart itself explains “the procession of the Holy 
Spirit from the Father.” 

But whether the distinctions in the Godhead 
for which the names Father, Son, and Holy 


*“Christian Doctrine,’’ p. 164. 


33 


After Pentecost, What? 


Spirit, stand, are immanent and essential, or 
whether they are merely educative aspects of the 
present redemptive process, the practical point 
to be kept in view is that they present a threefold 
mode of divine self-manifestation, which, without 
sacrificing the divine unity, meets to the full the 
intellectual and spiritual needs of man. 

Names, however, are not realities. The Reality 
of Realities—the Supreme Reality of the Uni- 
verse—the absolute Being in whom and by 
whom all things exist, no name can adequately 
set forth. “God is spirit,”* not a Spirit, but 
pure spirit; and all who would know anything 
of His essential nature have to get behind the 
various forms and figures by which He is revealed, 
and come into conscious contact with Him. In 
the beginning of the spiritual development of the 
individual and of the race all thoughts of God 
must of necessity be cast in an anthropomorphic 
mould. Since we have no celestial language, 
the Infinite must needs be translated into the 
terms of the finite, the spiritual into the terms 
of the natural. Nor will this mislead if it be 
borne in mind that all outward forms are mere 
accommodations to the limitations of human 
thought—mere ladders by which those who dwell 


in the darkness of the phenomenal climb into the 
rg a eet ee en 
*Marginal Reading R. V. John, iv, 23. 


34 


A Spiritual God. 


light of the real. The reality always transcends 
the form. God is something more than a mag- 
nified man having eyes, and hands, and feet. 
He is spirit; and those who desire really to know 
Him must rise above those pictorial representa- 
tions suited to a condition of spiritual childhood, 
until He is revealed directly and immediately to 
their spirits. 

But while it is true that the expression “God 
is spirit” brings prominently into view the 
divine essence as distinguished from the divine 
personality, the personality of God is not swal- 
lowed up and lost in His spirituality. God is 
not “a neuter absolute,” but a living being. He 
is“ the Father of spirits.” He is a spiritual Father, 
holding personal relations with all His children. 
In this very connection His spirituality and father- 
hood are conjoined. “Worship the Father in 
spirit and in truth; for God is spirit.” As spirit 
He is not confined within temples and churches, 
but is to be found everywhere and worshiped 
anywhere; asa Paternal Spirit He is personally 
and lovingly near to every worshiper. 

The Holy Spirit in whom the spirituality of 
God is expressed is sometimes represented in 
Scripture as an impersonal force, attribute or 
influence; but in these cases the sign is put for 
the thing signified, the symbol for the reality. 


a 


After Pentecost, What? 


In its last analysis force always involves person- 
ality; an attribute is a quality of being; influence 
is the outbreathing of life. Behind every good 
force, attribute, or influence there is always a 
good person; and behind every evil force, attri- 
bute, or influence, there is always an evil person. 

Prayer is frequently offered for the influence 
of the Holly Spirit when the object of prayer 
ought to be the Holy Spirit Himself. Those 
who have the Holy Spirit have His influence, as 
those who have the sun have his light and heat. 

A recent writer, tracing in a tentative way 
the movements of “the spirit of God” in the in- 
tellectual and moral development of the race, finds 
“a spiritual force operating from the first in He- 
brew history, and strangely differentiating and 
integrating it, maintaining in ita marked individ- 
uality and exclusiveness, while at the same time it 
kept it in organic relation with world-history.”* 
This “spiritual force” increases through the ages 
and comes at length to its fullness in Jesus of Naza- 
reth. The word force is not happily chosen. 
The movements of God in history are to be 
regarded as something other, and something 
more than amere force, even if that force be 
designated a sfirztual force, or even if it is 


66 


looked at through Harnack’s eyes, as “a potency 


*“The Holy Spirit in Literature and Life,’’ by Dr. J. Coyle, pp. 


245, 246. 
36 


A Spiritual God. 


which has all the religious value of a person.” 
The tidal movements of history are directly op- 
erated by a spiritual being, who is the fountain 
ofallforce, physical and spiritual, potential and 
actual. 

Matthew Arnold’s view of God as “a power not 
ourselves,” which becomes“ a stream of tendency,” 
marks a slight advancement from the conception 
of God asa mere force, but it,too,is inadequate, 
inasmuch as by robbing God of personality it not 
only takes from Him every shred of self-con- 
sciousness, but it also removes Him forever out- 
side the sphere of the soul’s experience. It is 
refreshing to hear the venerable Mr. Gladstone 
say, “I do not hold with streams of tendency. 
After sixty years of public life I hold more 
strongly than ever this conviction, deepened and 
strengthened by long experience of the reality, 
and the nearness, and the personality of God.” 
This clear note of testimony, born of experience, 
is specially valuable for the recognition which it 
gives of the personal interest and love of the all- 
enfolding and all-upholding Spirit. From His 
brooding presence and embracing providence 
there comes an infinite sense of helpfulness which 
is scarcely conceivable until His personality is 
firmly grasped. The living Spirit is the loving 
Spirit. Love is the very breath of His life. 


ai) 


After Pentecost, What ? 


Christ loved men and died for them; the Holy 
Spirit loves men and lives for them. He identifies 
Himself with every human interest. With a love 
that suffers, a love that endures,a love that never 
relinquishes its beneficent purpose, He gives Him- 
self to the work of man’s redemption. Nothing 
is too costly for Him to give, nothing too hard 
for Him to do to secure the highest welfare of 
those in whose happiness He is bound up. He 
puts Himself at man’s service; all that He has 
He holds and uses for man’s benefit. So close is 
the affectional relation which He sustains to man 
that He is grieved or gladdened by his conduct. 
Human sin is not something committed against 
acold, dead law; it is something committed 
against a loving, sensitive Being. There is one 
sin designated ¢#e sin against the Holy Spirit, 
but in a true and valid sense every sin is @ sin 
against the Holy Spirit and wounds His loving 
heart. When any one is in the valley of decision, 
halting between two opinions, the Spirit stands be- 
side him urging him to choose the better part; 
when any one makes a sinful choice he has to set 
aside the protest of this Inward Monitor, who lays 
upon him the hand of restraint, saying, “ See thou 
do it not;” when any one enters the downward 
path of disobedience he has to push his way past 
this loving friend who stands pleadingly between 


38 


A Spiritual God. 


him and ruin, crying out,“ Turn ye, turn ye,why 
will ye die?” when any one remains impenitent 
he has to harden his heart against the moving, 
melting tears of pity which the sorrowing Spirit 
rains upon his head; and when, on the other hand, 
any one shows the slightest inclination towards 
higher things,and endeavors to walk in the narrow 
way which leads upward to the life eternal, the 
happy Spirit encourages him, saying, “ Fear thou 
not, for Iam with thee; be not dismayed, for I am 
thy God; I will strengthen thee, yea, I will up- 
hold thee with the right hand of My righteous- 
ness.” Deeply affecting is all this tender solici- 
tude on man’s behalf. 


‘‘O Spirit, beautiful and dread; 
My heart is like to break 
With love, for all thy tenderness 
For us poor sinners’ sake,”’ 


The interest of the Spirit in the children of 
men is no new thing. No age has had a monopoly 
of His love. His operations have not been limited 
to certain times and seasons. Through all the 
ages He has been incessantly at work, disseminat- 
ing among men His saving influences, and carry- 
ing forward, without a break,the moral reparation 
of the race. His power in the world has been 
active rather than latent. His motions in man 
have been something more than “ prophetic stir- 


rings ;” they have been positive and fruitful im- 


39 


After Pentecost, What? 


pulses. From His haunting presence comes the 
impulse to righteousness which all men feel, and 
which is commonly described as the working of 
conscience. Pentecost did not mark His coming 
into the world or into the heart of man for the 
first time; it marked His coming in fullness of 
power; it marked the reaching of a new stage 
in Elis continuous redemptive activity; it marked 
the beginning of His temporal mission, which 
through the Incarnate Son He still carries on, 
bringing to all men salvation to the uttermost. 
Never was there atime when the Holy Spirit did 
not exist,never was there a time when His activity 
ceased or slackened. Upon the face of the waters 
He brooded at creation’s birth, bringing cosmos 
out of chaos, light out of darkness, life out of 
death. He is the great world-builder, the potent 
energy by which and from which all things are 
evolved. Equally active is He within the spir- 
itual sphere of things. Over the prostrate body 
of humanity He is ever bending, breathing into 
it His inspiring life,and resuscitating its expiring 
hopes and purposes; into the humblest heart that 
has sought Him He has entered—oftentimes by 
some little wicket-gate, silently and unobserved 
—bringing joy unspeakable, and revealing things 
that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart 
of man conceived; over the discordant elements 


40 


A Spiritual God. 


of social life He has ever brooded, bringing them 
into harmony with one another, and with heaven’s 
perfect order. 

One purpose for which the eternity of the Holy 
Spirit is brought into view in connection with 
the work of Christ is evidently to furnish an 
illustrative example of His ordinary operations. 
If Christ, the High Priest of the race, “through 
the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without blem- 
ish unto God;” if the Spirit was given to Him 
“ without measure,” anointing Him to the work 
of human redemption, and upholding Him until 
it was accomplished; if, through all His earthly 
life, the Spirit dwelt within Him, co-operating 
with Him, strengthening Him for His daily toil, 
enabling Him to perform mighty works which 
no other man ever did, and sustaining Him in 
the hour of His deepest agony, when in the 
culminating act of vicarious self-surrender His 
soul was made an offering for sin, He will most 
surely render the measure of help required by 
any one who is willing and ready to pour out his 
life as an oblation unto God. What the Eternal 
Spirit did for Christ in the days of His flesh, He 
has always been doing for others. He has had to 
do with the totality of human interests and activ- 
ities. Of every sacrificial life He has been the 
inspiration. There has been no good thing done 


41 


After Pentecost, What? 


by any man in which He did not have a part. 
The light in which men have rejoiced is the light 
which His presence has kindled; the strength in 
which they have vanquished evil and wrought 
righteousness is the strength which His presence 
has imparted. Constant as the operation of the 
sun upon the earth has been the operation of His 
life-giving power upon the hearts of men. The 
long-suffering love with which He strove with 
the disobedient antediluvians to lead them to re- 
pentance (Gen. vi. 3); the unwearied patience 
with which He labored with the Jewish people 
while they rebelled against Him, and vexed Him 
sorely (Comp. Isa. Ixiii. Io, and Acts vii. 51), 
have always been displayed in his efforts to reach 
alike those without and those within the sphere 
of gospel light and privilege. Hehas anticipated 
every gospel herald, going before him to prepare 
the way for his message, going along with him 
to make his message effective. He is never out- 
run, or outdone. Greatly is He misunderstood 
when importuned to do what He is always doing. 
The Spirit of the Ages “ worketh hitherto,” and 
worketh still. He is divine activity in the pres- 
ent tense; the Eternal Now of divine power. 

To the Eternal Spirit universality belongs. 
His saving influences and efforts are not restricted 
to certain places and persons; they are not exclu- 


42 


A Spiritual God. 


sive property of any elect people. Like the rain 
which falls upon every separate blade of grass, 
or like the sunshine which falls on every separate 
flower, they are bestowed impartially upon all con- 
ditions and classes of men.* Peter in his Pente- 
costal sermon makes the universality of the 
Spirit’s operations the distinguishing feature of 
the new age that was being ushered'in. The 
ancient prophecy, “I will pour out My Spirit 
upon all flesh,” was declared to be then fulfilled. 
The Spirit was given to all without distinction, 
and without exception. Echoing the words of 
Peter, Clemens, Bishop of Rome, says: “ There 
was a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon 
all.” It is added: “ The promise is unto you and to 
your children, and to all that are afar off.” It is 
to all who will grasp it and claim it. Free as the 
air, the Spirit can be had for the taking; He gives 
Himself to all in a measure proportioned to their 
desire to possess, their capacity to receive, and 
their willingness to use. By the door which in 
every man opens to the divine He enters laden 
with blessing. To every man He brings a per- 
sonal message; with every man He has personal 


*“Tt is a mistake to imagine,’’ says Dr. W. A. Martin, the well- 
known missionary and oriental scholar, ‘‘that the Holy Ghost con- 
fines His operations within the forms of Christianity. In heathen 
countries His presence is like electric fluid in the atmosphere, while 
in Christendom it is like that fluid circulating through a network of 
wires, and responding to the human touch in providing light and heat 
and power.”’ 

43 


After Pentecost, What? 


dealings; upon the head of every man He lays 
His hand in benediction. Wide as the world is 
the sweep of His loving ministry. As the Father 
loved the entire world of sinners and gave His 
only begotten Son for their redemption, as the 
Son loved the entire world of sinners and died to 
redeem them, the Holy Spirit loves the entire 
world of sinners and strives to bring them into 
actual possession of the redemption which the 
Father has provided, and the Son has purchased. 
There breathes not a soul who is not dear to the 
heart of the Spirit, and to whom His all-sufficient 
help is not freely tendered. For every man’s 
salvation His best efforts are being put forth. 
Not if He can prevent it will any one for whom 
Christ died perish in his sins. 

In the conception of God as a Spirit eternal 
and universal, zééguzty is included. In the para- 
doxical language of St. Augustine, “He is most 
hidden, yet most present.” His pervasive energy 
fills the universe. All the processes of nature 
are the expression of His omnipresent life. His 
presence surrounds every soul as the air surrounds 
the body, or as the waters of the ocean surround 
the fish that swims through their crystal depths. 
It is in Him that the spiritual nature of man lives 
and moves and has its being. As well might 
man attempt to flee from his own shadow as to 


44 


A Spiritual God. 


flee from the all-embracing Spirit. “Whither 
shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I 
flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into 
heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in 
Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the 
wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead 
me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.” (Ps. 
cxxxix. 7,8.) To localize the Spirit, to say that 
He is here and not there, is to deny His omni- 
presence; and to deny His omnipresence is to 
deny His deity. When the question is asked, 
Where is the Spirit? it is sufficient to reply by 
asking, “ Where is He not?” He is everywhere. 
Because “the day of His visitation” is being 
specially enjoyed and improved at one place, we 
are not to infer that He is absent from any other 
place. With an omnipresent being, absenteeism 
is impossible. The human friend may be an oc- 
casional visitor, the Divine Friend is a perpetual 
presence. The human Jesus came and went, the 
Spirit came and stays. “I will make request of 
the Father,” said Jesus, “and He shall give you 
another helper that may abide with you for ever.” 
Everywhere He is present, waiting to find room 
in human hearts. His abiding presence in the 
church is the source of her inspiration and 


strength, the pledge of her ultimate triumph; 
15 


After Pentecost, What? 


His abiding presence in the world is the source 
of her aspiration and hope, the pledge that sin 
will be subdued, and mankind redeemed. But 
His presence becomes a power only in so far as 
it is realized. Too often we resemble the stupid 
fish that lies gasping in the sunshine with only 
one inch of sand between him and the water of 
the ocean; one flop would take him over into his 
native element, but there he lies in as sada plight 
as if the ocean were leagues away. How sad to 
imagine that the Spirit of God is far away when 
He is so very near! How sad to perish of thirst 
with the beating of the waves of the ocean of 
divine love sounding in our ears! 


CHAPTER IV. 
SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 


“Speak to Him then, for spirit with spirit 
can meet; 
Nearer is He than breathing, nearer than 
hands or feet,” 
TENNYSON, 

THE spiritualizing of the idea of God leads to 
the spiritualizing of worship. The truth that 
God is spirit, carries with it the obligation to 
worship Him in spirit and in truth. The reve- 
lation of God in the Spirit being the final form 
of divine self-manifestation, those who do not 
know Him in the Spirit do not know Him as He 
is now revealing Himself, and those who do not 
worship Him in spirit do not worship Him 
in the way in which He seeks to be wor- 
shiped. A change in the quality of worship 
is indicated in the words of Jesus, “ The hour 
cometh and now is, when the true worshiper 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for 
such doth the Father seek to be His worshipers.” 
(John iv. 32.) The true worshiper 1s now to 
worship the Father, finding in Him an object 
worthy of his reverence and love. He is to wor- 
ship Him “in spirit,” that is, in a spiritual way, 


47 


After Pentecost, What? 


as opposed to the way which consists in outward 
acts which appeal to the senses; “and in truth,” 
that is, in a true way—a way in which the out- 
ward forms harmonize with spiritual realities, 
and fittingly express the inmost sentiments of the 
heart. 

True worship isa spiritual act. It is living 
communion, like with like, spirit with Spirit. 
It is an act of the Spirit in which the body merely 
assists. It demands the vigorous use of what 
Plato calls “soul-wings.” The divine Spirit is 
ever drawing man upward, the world-spirit is 
ever drawing him downward. Those who as- 
cend do so by overcoming opposition. In their 
struggles to rise every inch of progress is con- 
tested. Among the fantastic visions of St. An- 
thony there is one in which the soul’s effort to 
ascend into the sphere of the spiritual is strik- 
ingly set forth. “One night the saint heard a 
voice, saying unto him, ‘Anthony, get up, go 
out and look.’ He obeyed, and saw a gigantic 
figure, whose head was in the clouds, and whose 
outstretched arms extended far across the sky. 
Many souls were fluttering in the air, and en- 
deavoring, as they found opportunity, to fly up- 
ward, past this dreadful being. Numbers of 
them he seized in the attempt and dashed them 
back on the earth. Some escaped him, and ex- 


48 


Spiritual Worship. 


ulted above, while he raged at their success. 
Thus sorrowing and rejoicing were mingled to- 
gether, as some were defeated and others triumph- 
ant. This he was given to understand was the 
rise and fall of souls.” * But there is another 
side to the picture, which the dream of good St. 
Anthony fails to present. If souls in their efforts 
to cleave their way heavenward are hindered by 
evil spirits, they are helped by good spirits. The 
“ministering spirits sent forth to do service for 
them that shall inherit salvation” no doubt assist 
souls in their upward flight. And more are the 
unseen powers that are for aspiring souls than 
those that are against them. But above super- 
human helpers is the divine Helper promised by 
Christ. Upon His outstretched wings the soul 
of man is upborne in its attempt to soar. He gives 
that upward push, without which the soul’s ascent 
would be impossible. All aspiration is born of 
His inspiration. All worship is a response to 
His call. All success in finding God is the re- 
sult of His leading. 

Spiritual worship calls for strenuous effort, not 
only because of the alien influences to be over- 
come, but also because of the tendency to glide 
into formalism. It is an easy thing to be a Phari- 
see and offer mechanical worship, but it is a diffi- 


*“Hours with the Mystics,” R. A. Vaughan, p. 110. 


49 


After Pentecost, What? 


cult thing to bring the spiritual nature into exer- 
cise and offer spiritual worship. Forms that 
ought to be wings are apt to become crutches; 
ceremonies that have been outgrown fetter the 
growing soul as swaddling bands that ought to 
be cast off when babyhood is past fetter the grow- 
ing child; liturgies which at one stage of develop- 
ment were found to be helpful to the promotion 
of spiritual life, are apt,after long continued use, 
to become the means of the soul’s enslavement. 
There is, however, no necessary antagonism be- 
tween form and spirit. It is not the use but the 
abuse of forms that is to be condemned. To de- 
velop the function of worship by reconciling a 
spirit of devotion with the right use of a beauti- 
ful and stately liturgy, to break down the middle 
wall of partition between the ritualist and the 
spiritualist, making of twain one new man, and 
so making peace, is not the ieast imperative duty 
of the modern church. But care must always be 
taken not to lean too heavily upon the visible and 
the external, for these are to be valued only so 
far as they help the soul to reach the spiritual 
realities behind them. The form exists for the 
spirit, not the spirit for the form. “What is the 
chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.” In the con- 
stant use of set forms there is always danger that 
the spirit be lost in the form, and the image come 


50 


Spiritual Worship. 


to be worshiped for the reality—and this danger 
is just as great when worship is by rote as when 
it is by book. The tendency to substitute form 
for reality is illustrated in the superstitious rev- 
erence paid to the brazen serpent of Moses, which 
had been the heaven-appointed means of deliver- 
ance. For many generations that interesting relic 
was to pious souls a precious memorial of God’s 
goodness, and a valuable aid to faith; but by and 
by it became a fetich; incense was burned before 
it as an object of special sanctity, on account of 
its supposed magical power. Seeing that it was 
becoming a snare to the conscience, Hezekiah 
broke it in pieces, calling it in derision “ Nehush- 
tan”—a piece of brass. Does it not sometimes 
seem as if it might be a good thing were some 
iconoclastic reformer to destroy the ancient sym- 
bols which the church holds in superstitious re- 
gard, but in which her faith and devotion are no 
longer expressed, that she might be forced to 
create new ones? But perhaps it is wiser to let 
the tares grow with the wheat, lest in pulling up 
the tares the wheat is uprooted also. ‘The old is 
not to be discarded because it is old, nor the new 
accepted because it is new. Spirit-filled souls 
find use for both. They “speak one to another 
in psalms and hymns,” using words and figures 
in which the faith of the past is crystallized, “and 


fe 
Si 


After Pentecost, What? 


in spiritual songs,” breaking out into free, spon- 
taneous utterance under the impulse of the divine 
Spirit; “making melody with the heart to the 
Lord,” alike in what is memorized and in what is 
improvised. The spirit of worship is the main 
thing, and if that be taken care of, forms will 
take care of themselves; they will keep changing 
if they are kept growing; they will not become 
petrified so long’ as they continue to live; they 
cannot be frozen into the stiffness of death if the 
breath of the divine Spirit be continually breathed 
into them. 

In desolating judgments the Jewish temple 
was swept away, and its cumbersome ritualistic 
service forever abolished, that men might rise 
from the idea of a localized God to the idea of a 
God everywhere present, and that in the absence 
of all external symbols they might commune with 
Him in spirit, everywhere, and at alltimes. This 
great transition from the material to the spiritual 
in religion, of which the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem was the outward sign, is pictorially described 
in the epistle to the Hebrews. The law is there 
set forth as introductory to the gospel; Moses 
prefigures Christ; the Aaronic priesthood is con- 
summated in the Christian priesthood; distinc- 
tions between things sacred and things secular are 


abolished; holy orders, holy places, holy days be- 
52 


Spiritual Worship. 


come things of the past; all Christians are “an 
elect race, a royal priesthood ;” all places are holy 
places; all days are holy days. It is not that the 
sacred has become common, but the common has 
become sacred. Every meal isa sacrament, every 
event a providence, every hearth-stone an altar, 
every heart a temple. 

It is truly wonderful to what an extent the 
church ignores this change from the outward to 
the spiritual, and how tenaciously she clings to 
obsolete ceremonials. A curious survival of a 
defunct form is found in the use of the term ‘‘altar” 
in certain Protestant churches. Mourners are in- 
vited to come to “the altar.” Has the church of 
Christ a literal altar? Are not the sacrifices 
which she offers “spiritual sacrifices?” and is not 
the altar upon which they are offered a spiritual 
altar? In the Roman Catholic Church the climax 
to an imposing ritual is found in “ the elevation of 
the host,” by which the perpetual sacrifice of 
Christ is offered by the church. But if Christ 
made “one sacrifice for sin forever,” there is no 
need that His sacrifice be repeated. What is now 
demanded of Christians is not a sin offering, but 
a self-offering. Their lives as a perpetual obla- 
tion are to be freely expended in self-giving 
sacrifice for others. ‘To do good and to com- 


municate forget not, for with such sacrifice God 


So 


After Pentecost, What? 


is well pleased.” And just as there is no literal 
altar or sacrifice, there is no literal priesthood. 
The assumption on the part of a sinful mortal of 
a priestly power by which he opens for others 
the door of access to God, and by which the 
grace of God is magically and mysteriously con- 
veyed to others, cannot be too heartily repudiated. 
The only human priesthood that now exists is 
the spiritual order of believing souls. In the 
Christian system the method of attorneyship has 
no place. To the humblest believer is given the 
right andthe privilege of going alone into the 
presence of the Most High, and as a spiritual 
priest, divinely anointed, offering up upon the 
altar of a sincere heart sacrifices of praise, and 
prayer, and holy deeds, acceptable to God 
through Jesus Christ. 

All worship is empty and vain that does not 
take the spirit of man through the outer court of 
the material, with its shadows of heavenly things, 
into the holy of holies of spiritual communion. 
The worship that is “in spirit and in truth” is 
actual fellowship with the Father, whom the Son 
objectifies, and unto whose presence the Spirit 
takes us. “We are the circumcision,” exclaims 
St. Paul, “who worship by the Spirit of God, 
and glory in Christ Jesus (in whom we discern 
the supreme revelation of God) and have no con- 


54 


pe 


Spiritual Worship. 


fidence in the flesh.” (Phil. iii. 3.) Spiritual com- 
munion is with the Father, through the Son, by 
the Spirit. The Spirit is not the object but the 
inspirer of worship. By His touch upon the heart 
the feeling of worship is awakened; through His 
abiding presence in the heart communion of life 
and love with the Father is maintained. Those 
in whom He abides are made one with the Father 
not alone in their hours of devotion, but in the 
whole round of their daily duties. Their lives 
are attuned to the heavenly harmonies; their 
spirits are kept ina worshipful mood ; they “ pray 
at all seasons in the Spirit”; their entire life is 
one continuous act of devotion; so that, as Victor 
Hugo has put it, “ whatever be the attitude of the 
body, the soul is always upon its knees.” 

The possibility of man finding the Father, who 
is the supreme object of his quest, lies in the fact 
that He is always in His world. This great 
world-house is His family home in which He al- 
ways dwells among His children. Never is He 
apart from the universe, and never is Iie apart 
from the soul. The true worshiper, withdraw- 
ing within himself, entering into the inmost sanc- 
tuary of his spiritual being, and shutting the door 
which excludes the external world, finds God 
there; going out of himself, sending his soul out 
into the unseen realm in search of the Infinite 


55 


After Pentecost, What? 


Good, he finds Him there. The Supreme Spirit 
whom he worships as his Father is not banished 
outside the world, nor imprisoned within it. He 
is both immanent and transcendent; within the 
world, and above it; at the center of being and 
enthroned above the highest heavens; the inward 
shekinah before whom the spirit silently bows, 
and “God over all, blessed forever,” the object 
of all true worship, human and angelic. 

Whether the Father is sought above or within, 
in heaven or in the heart, the one thing to be 
kept in mind is that He is always within reach. 
Where heaven is we know not, but far away it 
cannot be, for between it and earth there is close 
connection, and every prayer sent to it reaches 
its destination at once. Prayer does not bring 
heaven near to us, but it brings us near to heaven; 
it does not bring the Father to us, but it brings 
us to the Father; it does not change the Father 
in Flis relation to us, but it changes us in our re- 
lation to the Father. Even when we do not pray 
the Father is with us, but when we pray we are 
with Him. Any one can say of the ever-watch- 
ful Father, “When I awake Thou art still with 
me,” but only the praying soul can say with the 
Psalmist, “ When I awake I am still with Thee.” 
Prayer is the uplooking, the uplifting, the upreach- 
ing of the soul to the Supreme Good; it is “the 


56 


Spiritual Worship. 


flight of the lonely to the Only,” it is the soul’s 
escape from its limitations and weakness to the 
source of infinite comfort and help. ‘To say that 
to pray is to beg is a beggarly conception of 
prayer. To pray is to wait upon God, to come 
into direct contact with Him, to listen to Him, 
“to inquire in His temple,” to tarry at His feet 
until His mind is made known. Prayer is not 
abstraction, it is aspiration. It does not consist 
in staring into the eternal darkness, but in lifting 
up the spirit into communion with the Eternal 
Father. It is not an apostrophe to the All-Being 
who is unknown and unknowable, but intelligent 
converse with the All-Father who is ever 
seeking after man that He may open up com- 
munication with him. “The consciousness 
Dimiod- sot pwhichw.ot beter. speaks ¢ (1) Pet. 
ii. 19), is something more than the dim sense of 
‘ta presence that disturbs.” It is the conscious- 
ness of the presence of one with whom we have 
personal and vital relations, one with whom we 
have the closest affinity and fellowship, one with 
whom we have personal intercourse. Sir Monier 
Williams, the great oriental scholar, asserts that 
the consciousness of personal union and _ fellow- 
ship with God is a unique and distinctive feature 
of the Christian religion. He fails to find it in 
any of the religions of the East. Between the 


57, 


After Pentecost, What? 


pantheistic god of Buddhism, who, although the 
immanent life and glory of nature, knows noth- 
ing of individual men, and the personal God of 
the New Testament, who numbers the hairs of 
our head,there is a gulf deep and unbridgable. It 
is no abstract, pervasive presence before whom 
the Christian worshiper stands. He draws near 
to a personal friend whose love is “his spirit’s 
food and sunshine,” and looking up into His face, 
cries in the spirit of adoption, “My Father!” 
Personality in man cries out for a personal 
God, all-wise, all-powerful, all-merciful; the 
touch of whose hand may be felt, the sound of 
whose voice may be heard. Man has always felt 
the need of a God sustaining towards him living, 
loving relationship; a God whom he can know 
and love, a God into whose sympathetic ear he can 
pour out his soul. Every system of philosophy 
from which personality las been evaporated has 
been found to be defective and unsatisfactory ; 
and every system of religious thought from which 
the personality of God has been eliminated has 
utterly failed to satisfy the yearnings of the heart. 
Who can worship an infinite essence? The crav- 
ing of man is for a God upon whom he can get 
an individual grip. “My soul thirsteth for God, 
for the living God,” is the passionate outcry of 
one who speaks as the mouthpiece of the race. 


58 


Spiritual Worship. 


The ground of this personal intercourse be- 
tween God and man is found in the mediation 
of Christ, which the Spirit makes effectual. In 
reminding Jews and Gentiles alike, of the spirit- 
ual unity into which they had been brought in 
Christ, Paul says, “ Through Him we both have 
our access in one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 
ii. 18), or more literally, “ through Him we both 
are brought toward the Father in one Spirit.” 
All who are brought toward the Father in the 
Spirit are brought toward Him through Christ. 
Christ is the only way to the Father,and hence all 
who come to the Father in the Spirit, must come 
through Him. His mediation is fundamental. 
Souls cannot escape from its operation any more 
than bodies can escape from the working of the 
law of gravitation. With every worshiping soul 
Christ identifies Himself; standing with him in 
the Father’s presence, making intercession on 
his behalf. The universality of His mediation is 
based upon the relation which man sustains to 
God—a relation which Jesus might almost be 
said to have discovered. When He died, “the 
just one for the unjust to bring man to God,” 
He died to bring the child to the Father; He 
died to restore a ruptured relationship. Man is 
God’s child, His wayward child, His self- 
exiled child, His lost child, but still His child, 


29 


After Pentecost, What? 


And as God’s child he has a right to come into 
His presence at all times and hold fellowship 
with Him. But this right he may not care to 
claim; the sense of his divine sonship may 
remain dormant; he may _ not realize his 
divine heredity; he may not value his priy- 
ileges as ason of God; he may be. starving 
in the far country, when he might be feast- 
ing in the Father’s house. Yet, however forlorn 
and depraved he may be, he is just as welcome 
into the Father’s presence as the most exalted 
seraph. Before him the beautiful gates leading 
to the King’s palace stand ever open; and the ap- 
proach is clear all the way up to the throne-room 
and audience chamber, where the King, his 
Father, waits to receive him. No barriers re- 
main between man and God except those which 
his earthly environment of necessity imposes. 
Through the “one Mediator, Himself man,” 
there is perfect freedom of access for all to the 
Father. But man is still in the body. The things 
of the spirit-realm he sees “through a veil that 
hangs between”; although when his eyes are 
anointed of the Spirit that veil keeps growing 
thinner. He chafes against his limitations, beat- 
ing his breast against the bars of his cage, “ yearn- 
ing, straining, for the prison of confining flesh to 
burst” and set him free, that he may stand in 


60 


Spiritual Worship. 


God’s most holy place, and see him face to face, 
lost in the light of 


‘“*The ineffable Forever, 
And the eternal All in All.” 


61 


CHAPTER V. 
A SPIRITUAL APPREHENSION OF TRUTH. 


‘‘A man can understand inspired Scriptures only as he 

is in the same spirit in which they are given.”’ 
GEORGE Fox. 

Many who read the words of Scripture do not 
see in them a revelation of spiritual truth; just 
as many who saw Christ in the flesh did not see 
in Him a revelation of God. For the discern- 
ment of spiritual truth the inward illumination 
of the Spirit of God is an essential requisite. 
The Spirit’s presence in the heart develops a new 
spiritual sense which enables one to see behind 
the veil of the phenomenal and discern the spirit- 
ual meaning in the material symbol, the divine 
idea in the human words. This new spiritual 
sense, which is sometimes spoken of as a sixth 
sense, opens up a new world—a world of which 
this mundane sphere is but the shadow. “Eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered 
into the heart of man the things which God hath 
prepared for them that love Him”; prepared here 
and now, and not in some distant and future 
heaven. Of these supersensible things it is dis- 
tinctly declared that “God hath revealed them 


62 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


unto us by His Spirit.” Into the inner court of 
spiritual knowledge all are brought who discard 
fleshly wisdom and allow themselves to be led and 
enlightened by the Spirit of God. To them, un- 
seen, unheard, unimagined things are spiritually 
revealed. They experience more than is implied 
in the religious truism of Origen that “by the 
contact of the Holy Spirit they become clearer in 
their mental perceptions, and have their souls 
filled with a brighter light”; for to their enrap- 
tured vision the secrets of the spiritual world lie 
disclosed. Walking in the Spirit, they walk in 
the light in the New Jerusalem. 

The power of spiritual apprehension is at bot- 
tom a moral quality. “ Each man enters into God 
so much as God enters into him,” is the profound 
remark of Amiel. What he sees is determined 
by what he is. It is no poet’s dream that heaven 
lies about us in our infancy. The innocence of 
childhood gives the single eye that makes the 
vision clear. The loss of heart-purity entails the 
loss of spiritual sight. An evil heart exhales 
vapors which render the revelations of God 
murky and obscure. To a soul immersed in car- 
nality the spiritual world is a blank. But to the 
spiritual man, the man of sensitized conscience, 
the spiritual world stands revealed. The true in 
heart know the truth; the pure in heart see God. 


63 


After Pentecost, What? 


Every plunge in the laver of regeneration brings 
a fresh apocalypse; every consecrated height 
becomes a new Pisgah; every anointing of the 
Holy One purges the eyes from those earthly 
films which prevent the soul from penetrating to 
the essential and the eternal. 

Love of the truth is another important element 
in spiritual discernment. ‘‘ Affection is part of 
insight,’* is the apt remark of Canon Mozley. 
The love-lit eye sees deep into the heart of things. 
Spiritual truths which coyly shrink from the gaze 
of cold intellectualism manifest themselves to 
those who possess the lover’s heart. In the light 
of the love which the Holy Spirit kindles many 
things are made visible which otherwise would 
remain concealed. 

Without the purifying and eu Sheol touch of 
the Spirit no one can see into Holy Writ beyond 
the printed page. Questions of external criticism 
are to be settled by scholars, but spiritual questions 
hold their solution in reserve for those who are 
taught of the Spirit. The Author of the Bible 
knows what is in it, and He alone is competent 
to interpret it tous. ‘‘He only that made the 
lock,’’? says Gurnall, ‘‘can help us toa key that 
will fit its wards, and open its sense.’’ It is no 
mere puzzle book that He has given to us. There 
is in the Bible no mystery which He is not anxious 


64 


am tis 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


to unfold. To give to men an understanding of 
its inmost teachings is the object of His constant 
effort. He goes before every earnest truth-seeker 
flashing an electric search-light down into the 
darkness of its abysmal depths, that the pearls of 
truth may be discovered; He guides him where 
to sink his shaft that he may reach undreamed- 
of deposits; things that with all his searching he 
could never have found out are ‘‘revealed unto 
him by the Spirit,’ ‘‘for the Spirit searcheth all 
things, yea, the deep things of God;’’ bringing 
to view the treasures of hidden knowledge which 
lie buried in the Word, waiting the time when 
they can be understood and used. 

Spirit-taught men possess a new Bible. ‘‘ Either 
I have changed or the Bible has changed,”’ ex- 
claimed a newly anointed soul, ‘‘for it has become 
a new book to me.’’ Primarily the change was 
in himself. The Bible was made new to him 
because he had found a new light by which to 
read it. An illuminated soul possesses an illu- 
minated Bible. It is the presence of the Spirit 
within the heart that makes the Bible anew book 
to every true Christian; and it is the presence of 
the Spirit of God within the Bible itself that 
makes it, to each successive age, a message fresh 
from the heart of God. Through the Bible the 
Spirit is always speaking to men, and those who 


65 


After Pentecost, What? 


turn aside from its teachings miss His most distinct 
and assuring message. The Bible is not merely 
a spoken word; it is a speaking word. It is not 
an echo from the dead past,but a voice in the liv- 
ing present; it is not “an outgrown shell by life’s 
unresting sea,*? but a word living and powerful 
—a word pulsating with warm life-blood—a word 
throbbing with vital energy. Said Napoleon, 
“The Bible is something more than a book; it 
is a living thing.” And because living it is life- 
giving. It breeds motives, it produces right- 
eousness, it imparts life to dead and dying souls. 
“The words that I speak unto you,” says the 
Christ, “are spirit and are life.” They touch the 
lifeless heart of man and it starts into life, as in 
the ancient legend the sleeping princess in the 
enchanted palace awoke from the sleep of years 
at the kiss of the prince. 

The Spirit is in all the Bible, but not in equal 
measure in all its parts. As a progressive rev- 
elation corresponding in its various stages of 
growth with the spiritual development of the race, 
it shows an ever-increasing fullness of the Spirit’s 
presence and power. Itis a long cry between 
Sinai and Calvary. Jesus is more attractive than 
Jehovah. The record of the incarnation at the 
beginning of the New Testament is the prelude 
to the revelation of the kingdom at its close. The 


60 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


fourth Gospel runs deeper than the synoptical 
Gospels. Apostolic theology gives a more com- 
prehensive view of the work of Christ than the 
theology of the evangelists. The cry, “ Back to 
Christ,” is misleading if it means, back to Christ 
from the Apostles; it is a true guiding cry if it 
means back to Christ through the Apostles. All 
the truth about Christ is not unfolded in the four 
fragmentary records of his earthly life. Inthe 
light reflected from the Apostolic writings we 
read the deeper meaning of the Gospels; in the 
Apostolic theology we have the harvest gathered 
by the disciples from the seed which the Master 
planted. But Apostolic theology was not final. It 
did not set the truth in fixed and unchanging form. 
It prepared the way for the still greater revelation 
of Christ which the Spirit is now unfolding. All 
the secrets of the Christ-life have not yet been 
discovered; all its ocean depths have not yet been 
sounded; all its vast domains have not yet been 
explored; all its stored up light has not broken 
out at the touch of reverent study. There are as 
many and as important discoveries yet to be made 
in the region of Christological truth as in the 
world of nature. ‘‘He that hath an ear” is called 
upon to “hear what the Spirit sazth,” that is, 
what the Spirit is now saying “to the churches.” 
For the church of to-day the ever speaking Spirit 
67 


After Pentecost, What? 


has a distinctive message. He has new light to 
shed upon old problems; He has a satisfactory 
solution to present, from Christ, for all the per- 
plexing problems which have grown out of the 
new conditions of the present; He has something 
to say, in Christ’s name, that is all-important, 
about the application of the gospel to the existing 
social and industrial situation. As a living guide, 
a source of present illumination, He is giving 
to the church of to-day new and enlarged visions of 
truth, widening her conception of the scope of 
the gospel by leading her to see the entire suit- 
ableness and sufficiency of the redemption of 
Christ to every possible condition and contingency 
that may arise in the age-long conflict of right 
with wrong, just as He widened the thought 
of the early church to God’s growing purpose of 
redemption, by leading those who were Jews to 
see that the Gentiles were partakers with them of 
the same privileges, and heirs with them of the 
same inheritance. Jesus distinctly promised that 
the Holy Spirit would supplement His teachings, 
making known things for which the church would 
not be ripe until after His departure. Hear Him 
declare, “I have yet many things to say unto you, 
but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, 
the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you 
into all the truth, for He shall not speak from 
68 


— 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


Himself, but what things soever He shall hear, 
these shall He speak, and He shall declare unto 
you the things that are to come.” (John xvi. 
12,13). Again He says, “The Comforter, even 
the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in 
My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring 
to your remembrance all that I said unto you.” 
(John xiv. 16.) The Holy Spirit was to complete 
the instruction of Christ’s disciples by enabling 
them to keep the old in mind and to add to it 
things that were new. He was to teach them 
“all things”; not of course all things absolutely, 
but all things which it was needful to know. He 
was to guide them into “all the truth”; with- 
holding nothing of practical value, and grading 
‘up His instruction to their growing intelligence ; 
unfolding to them the mind of the Master just as 
fast as they were able to bear it. 

It is because the Progressive Spirit continues 
His work of revelation within the church, that 
she continues to grow in the knowledge of the 
truth. To His immediate inspiration all progress 
in spiritual knowledge is due. Creeds become 
outworn and obsolete because He leads the church 
into new light; new wine-skins have to be pro- 
vided because He keeps the wine of truth in a state 
of fermentation; seed-truths which have lain 
dormant in the Bible suddenly develop into full- 


69 


After Pentecost, What? 


ness of fruitage when the time has come for His 
quickening power to take effect upon them. With- 
out thinking about it, the church often follows 
the Spirit’s leading implicitly, and accepts His 
will as an independent source of authority. She 
holds to things not directly sanctioned by Scrip- 
ture, tacitly assuming that they are in accord- 
ance with the mind of the Spirit. The fun- 
damental principle of Protestantism as ex- 
pressed by Chillingworth is “The Bible, the 
whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible,” but 
with that principle Protestants have often been 
strangely inconsistent. Ifthe Bible is the sole 
ground of authority, where, for instance, is there 
the slightest warrant for the observance of the 
Sabbath on the first day of the week instead of 
the seventh? Wherever the ground for the change 
of the day is to be found, it cannot be found in a 
divine enactment. ‘The Roman Catholic Church 
claims that as “the spouse of Christ” she has for 
valid reasons changed the day, and that Prot- 
estants have blindly followed in her wake. To this 
charge the only satisfactory answer is that the 
change did not take place by the decree of a church 
council, but by “the immediate authorization 
of the Holy Spirit.” The church council merely 
registered the change. The change itself took 
place as naturally as the transition from winter 


7O 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


to spring; no direct command was required to 
give it effect; and so well assured is the church 
that she has not erred in following her living 
Teacher that her serenity is undisturbed, alike 
by the claims of ecclesiastical monopolists, and by 
reasonings of Judaistic literalists. She is sure 
that she stands upon the Spirit’s ground. 

Does the church of to-day sufficiently realize 
that from the Holy Spirit comes present illu- 
mination; and that as the Revealing Spirit He 
seeks to keep her in close connection with the 
source of truth, not only for the purpose of vi- 
talizing her moribund theology, so that the truth 
contained in her venerated symbols of faith may 
be conserved, but also for the purpose of guiding 
her into “the present truth,” that she may be His 
mouthpiece in declaring it to the world? He is 
using the church not only to guard and propagate 
the deposit of truth contained in the written Word, 
but also to be His living voice inthe present. He 
is speaking to her that He may speak through her. 
If at any time the church has no special message 
to deliver, it is because her connection with the 
Spirit of Truth is broken. Times of spiritual 
deadness are always times of spiritual darkness, 
and times of spiritual life are always times of 
spiritual enlightenment. Every new baptism 
of the Spirit brings a new revelation of truth, 


7A 


After Pentecost, What? 


and every new revelation of truth furnishes the 
church with a new message. When liberty to 
prophesy within the bosom of the church has been 
denied, sects have arisen. The church has forced 
prophetic souls to separate themselves from her 
communion that they might bear witness to some 
neglected truth. But she is growing wiser. She is 
beginning to see that she can fulfill her divine mis- 
sion more effectively by union than by division. 
Following the principle of comprehension, she is 
gathering into her testimony all that is essential 
in Christian truth, letting everything else drop 
out. She is beginning to accord to every believer 
the right to declare the things which he has seen 
and heard; she is learning to trust the Holy 
Spirit, and not to be afraid lest He contradict 
Himself by giving in Christian consciousness a 
revelation which will be out of harmony with 
the revelation which He has already given in the 
Word. 

Eighteen centuries of tutoring by the Holy 
Spirit count for something. His tireless effort 
to teach the church the deeper things of Christ 
begins to tell. The light is brightening and wid- 
ening; the spiritual quality of Christ’s teachings 
is coming to be appreciated; the thought of the 
church is advancing from the outward to the 
inward, from the shell of truth to the kernel, from 


72 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


the bone to the marrow, from the letter to the 
spirit. Less stress is being put upon outward 
symbols and more upon spiritual facts; the value 
of religious ordinances is being placed less in the 
mode than in the spiritof their administration; 
salvation is being sought not in the physical blood 
of the Son of God, but in the life and love of 
which that blood was the expression; the king- 
dom of Christ is coming to be looked upon as a 
spiritual empire founded in righteousness, and es- 
tablished by the operation of spiritual forces and 
the bestowment of spiritual rewards. The Bible 
itself is coming to be taken for what it really is, a 
spiritual book whichisto be spiritually interpreted. 
Its spiritual rather than its literal sense is coming 
to be accepted as generally the true one. There 
is found to be less reason than was once supposed 
to exist for modifying the declaration of Sweden- 
borg that “all the contents of Scripture to the most 
minute signify things heavenly and spiritual.”* 
Approached upon the spiritual side, the Word of 
God carries conviction; its hidden teachings are 
reached by contemplation rather than controversy 5 
they are tested by the heart rather than by the 
intellect; they are verified by experience rather 
than by demonstration. What does the Spirit- 
taught man care about destructive criticism? He 


*Arcana Celestia, 5253-1401. 


73 


After Pentecost, What? 


knows that it cannot despoil him of the rich har- 
vest which his spiritual eye has gathered. Being 
concerned merely with things external, the worst 
it can do is to strip some of the dead bark from 
the tree of revelation; the life of the tree, the 
essence of the truth, it cannot touch or harm. The 
spiritual element in truth is imperishable. The 
Bible might be destroyed, but “the incorruptible 
seed of the word” within it would live on in hu- 
man hearts, bringing forth fruit unto life eternal. 

The Spirit of God comes just as near to the 
Christians of to-day as He did to the prophets of 
ancient Isracl. Holy men of to-day speak for God 
and from God as they are moved by the Holy Spir- 
it. Nor are they animated phonographs, but living 
souls speaking in the language of man the mighty 
thoughts of God. The descent of the Spirit at 
Pentecost was explained by Peter as involving 
the possession by the church of the prophetic gift. 
“This is that ” he said, “ which hath been spoken 
by the prophet Joel: And it shall be in the last 
days, saith the Lord God, I will pour forth my 
Spirit upon all flesh, and your young men shall 
see visions, and your old men shall dream 
dreams; yea, and upon my servants and upon 
my handmaidens in those days will I pour 
forth my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 
(Acts ii. 17, 18.) No new prophetic order is 


74 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


established, but that blessed condition is realized 
which Moses longed for, when He exclaimed, 
“Would God that all the Lord’s people were 
prophets.” (Numb. xi. 29.) Upon every serv- 
ant and handmaiden of the Lord the spirit of 
prophecy is poured forth. Does that imply 
that all receive the prophetic gift in the same 
measure? By no means. There are those to 
whom the prophetic gift is given as a special and 
distinctive endowment. The modern prophet 
plays as important a part in the history of the 
church of to-day as the ancient prophet did in 
Israelitish history. He may not be as much in 
evidence as the priest; he may often have to tread 
the wine-press alone; but he is the real leader 
and reformer of the church. His heaven-sent 
message freshens the thought, and inspires the 
life of his times. “Where there is no vision the 
people cast off restraint” (Prov. xxix. TO}s7 Des 
cause religion has lost its power over them. But 
the true prophet, uttering anew the thought of 
God, awakens as with a trumpet blast the slum- 
bering consciences of men. He punctures ven- 
erated lies that he may conserve the truth; he 
destroys superstition that he may save faith; he 
re-opens the old wells which the priests have filled 
up with their traditions, that the living water 
may flow forth to slake the thirst of the perishing 


75 


After Pentecost, What? 


multitudes. The pulpit of to-day demands proph- 
ets, not priests. It demands men of vision; 
men who like Heman of old are “seers in the word 
of the Lord” (1 Chron. xxv. 5), interpreters to 
others of the spiritual meaning of God’s word; 
men of insight who have an immediate sense of 
the divine; men of foresight who look upon 
things from God's point of view; men who 
can declare, “The word of the Lord came unto 
me”; men who, because they are bearers of a 
message born of the Spirit, speak with authority 
and not as the scribes. The preacher will never 
lose his power as long as he is a true prophet— 
a chosen interpreter of God, bringing forth from 
the treasure-house of God’s truth things new 
and old. Religious books will be read as long 
as they speak for the age and /o the age, and bring 
fresh messages from the Spirit of Truth to those 
who read them. The world is standing upon the 
tip-toe of expectancy, waiting for the latest word 
from God. It keeps looking up with straining 
eyes and throbbing heart for the parting of the 
clouds. Never was its cry for more light more 
importunate than to-day. 

When man looks up God looks down; when 
man listens God speaks. His revelation to His 
children is not yet ended. His last word has not 
been spoken. “He is not dumb that He should 

76 


A Spiritual Apprehension of Truth. 


speak no more.” The written Word is closed 
and sealed, but His communication to man still 
goeson. His Spirit is not shut up in a book, - 
but has free access to the souls of men. If there 
is any truth in telepathy, or thought-transfer- 
ence; if one mind can, apart from the ordinary 
means of intercourse, influence another mind, 
projecting into it its thoughts, conveying to it its 
spiritual treasures, why should it be thought a 
thing incredible that the Infinite Mind should 
communicate itself to the finite mind? It is surely 
not too much to suppose that the route between 
the Spirit of God and the spirit of man is no more 
circuitous than the route between one human spirit 
and another. The barriers that stand between 
man and God, do not stand between God and man. 
Nothing can intercept His communications save 
man’s unwillingness to receive them. The in- 
flowing of His personality into man is direct; 
His light shines directly into the soul, His voice 
is heard directly inthe heart. He speaks to every 

one who is seeking after the truth, just as truly | 
as He spake to Abraham when he sat by his 
tent-door on the plains of Mamre;oras He spake 
to Luther when he crept painfully upon his 
hands and knees up Pilate’s staircase in Rome. | 
Nor is He speaking through the inner nature 
alone. All departments of knowledge are parts 


77 


After Pentecost, What? 


of His revelation. Nature, science, philosophy 
and history are among the media through which 
the many-voiced Spirit is uttering Himself. 
There is no speech nor language where His voice 
is not heard. 


‘*The word by seers and sibyls told 
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, 
Still floats upon the morning wind, 
Still whispers to the willing mind; 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost.’’ 


The world will not willingly allow any word 
of the Spirit to perish. Ittreasures up the words 
of seers and sibyls which often contain the merest 
modicum of truth, words which are “broken 
lights,” mere whisperings that linger onthe air, 
or voices in the wilderness that die away in the 
eternal silence in spite of every effort to retain 
them. How much more then ought it to prize 
the louder, clearer note of the Spirit given in that 
Book which is to the Spirit what the church is 
to Christ, His body, the organ of His self-man- 
ifestation! Here we have the most complete em- 
bodiment of His mind, the most complete un- 
veiling of the spiritual; here an everlasting and in- 
falliblewitness is borne to the facts whichmake for 
man’s salvation; here truths are implanted which 
contain within themselves the potency of an end- 
less development; here spiritual principles are 
enshrined which are to bind the countless forms 


[@) 
79 


A. Spuitual Apprehension of Truth. 


of truth in an all-embracing unity and harmony. 
May the Blessed Spirit, who, anticipating our 
needs, has laid up for us these boundless treasures 
of truth, teach us how to find them. With souls 
tremulous to His slightest touch; with souls that 
Jeelthe truth as artists feel color; with souls that 
respond to the music of the heavenly spheres as 
the piano gives back the note struck by another 
musical instrument, may we wait with hushed 
hearts for the fuller revelation yet to come, look- 
ing from the Word before us, to the world around 
us, and the soul within us, and the heaven above 
us, exclaiming, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant 
heareth.” 


79 


CHAPTER VI. 


AN INFLUX OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. 


“If the Holy Spirit were withdrawn, the Christ would be 
absent and of none effect tous. But if the Holy Spirit is 
present and active in us, we dwell in the full flood of the 
light and of the life of God, and of His Christ.” 

A. A. Hopae, D.D. 

Art Pentecost there was a new outflow of life 
from the life-giving Spirit; a new descent of the 
divine into the human. A reservoir of creative 
energy which had been held in reserve was 
opened; influences which had hitherto distilled 
as dew were poured out in a mighty flood, 
inundating and fertilizing the entire moral world. 
A dispensation of spiritual plenitude was in- 
augurated; a thrill of new life shot through the 
world’s heart,arousing the spiritual nature of man 
from its long dormancy; a religious awakening, 
a religious revival, or what Delitzsch calls “a new 
creative beginning,” took place, starting a new 
evolutionary process, and bringing in the summer- 
time of the world’s history. 

This larger life which the Holy Spirit brings 
into men is the life which Christ brought down 
from heaven. “I am come,” says Christ, “that ye 
might have life, and that ye might have it more 

80 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


abundantly.” He came to give to men a richer, 
deeper, diviner life than they had yet possessed ; 
He came to impart unto them the unsearchable 
riches of His own affluent life; He came to com- 
municate Himself to them through the agency of 
the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to bring men 
into vital connection with Him. When the Holy 
Spirit succeeds in getting the thought of any soul 
fixed upon Christ, the life of Christ is poured 
into that soul in a steady flood, and becomes a 
gulf stream that converts a barren, ice-bound waste 
into a goodly and fruitful land. When Christ-is 
known He is loved; and when He is loved He 
possesses the soul completely, making its sluggish 
pulses throb with new life, energizing it with 
new power, and lifting it up into sympathy with 
his far-reaching purpose of redemption. No one 
really knows what it is to live until the Holy 
Spirit makes Christ live in Him. “He that hath 
the Son,” whom the Spirit makes known, “hath 
life; true life; life that is worthy of the name of 
life; life that is “life indeed.” 

That the abundant life which He came to be- 
stow is administered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus 
Himself expressly declared when on the last day 
of the feast of tabernacles He stood in the 
temple, and cried, saying: “If any man thirst 
let him come unto me and drink. He that 


SI 


After Pentecost, What? 


believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, 
from within him shall flow rivers of living water. 
This spake He of the Spirit which they that be- 
lieve on Him were to receive, for the Spirit was 
not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” 
(John vii. 37.) The explanatory note here added 
by John to the words of Jesus makes it clear that 
the inflowing and outflowing life of the believer 
was looked upon as connected in the mind of Jesus 
with the coming of the promised Spirit. The cor- 
rect rendering of John’s statement is that “the 
Holy Spirit was not yet.” What does he mean? 
The Holy Spirit was not yet “come in,” says 
Alford; the Holy Spirit was not yet “here,” says 
Luther; the Holy Spirit was not yet “ present,” 
says Meyer. There is no denial of the essential 
existence of the Holy Spirit, nor of His presence 
in Jesus, nor of His agency in the Old Testament. 
It is not meant that before this time He was not 
present in any measure, but that before this time 
He was not present in the fullness of his over- 
flowing power. Pentecost was not, as Augus- 
tine puts it, “the birthday of the Holy Spirit”; it 
was rather the day of His majority, the day when 
He entered into possession of His inheritance. His 
bright prophetic foreglow had tipped with light 
the solitary mountain peaks, illuminating a soul 
here and there; now an unsetting sun had arisen 


82 - 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


from behind the horizon,flooding the world with 
light. Even before the days of Noah, when he 
strove with the antediluvians, the Spirit of God 
had been coming into touch with human hearts, 
giving earnests of coming blessing; but these 
preliminary movings upon the children of men 
were but the hidings of His power, and are not 
to be spoken of in comparison with what took 
place at Pentecost when the Spirit was * shed 
forth abundantly.” The reason given why “the 
Holy Spirit was not yet,” is, “because that Jesus 
was not yet glorified.” Until glorified, until his 
mediatorial work was completed by his ascension 
into glory, this new efflux of the Spirit’s life-giv- 
ing power could not take place. The Spirit’s 
coming was to be conditioned upon the Savior’s 
going; the Spirit’s outpouring was to be the 
proof that He had vanquished death and had as- 
cended to His native heaven. Until Jesus was 
glorified the Spirit could not be present in the 
particular form referred to, as the Spirit of the 
glorified Christ,abiding in the heart of the believer 
as an upspringing fountain of life. He could not 
give to men the life-giving water until it was 
furnished by Christ, and it could not be furnished 
by Christ until He was glorified. Since the com- 
pletion of the earthly work of Christ the Spirit 
operates upon men in a new way; He reaches 


83 


After Pentecost, What? 


them by a new road; He pours His life into them 
along a new channel. By presenting to them 
“the things of Christ” He influences them as He 
never could do before. That Christ should be 
prominent in their thoughts, that they should con- 
sciously draw their spiritual life from Him, is as 
the Spirit would have it; for when Christ is 
received He is received, and working through 
Christ He gains an abiding and controlling in- 
fluence in their lives. 

In this new influx of life all Christians share. 
The Spirit of the glorified Christ which was given 
for the first time at his ascension is “the Spirit 
which they that believe in Him were to receive.” 
It is given to all believers, in all the world, to 
the end of time. It is “the one Spirit” of which 
all Christians drink. There is no monopoly 
of the Spirit. There is no special experience of 
His indwelling and inworking which differs in 
any essential respect from His operations which 
are common to all believers. The first fruits of 
the Spirit are the same in kind as the full har- 
vest. “The earnest of the Spirit” is the same 
in kind as the complete inheritance. It is part 
payment made incoin of the same standard value 
as that in which the full payment is to be made. 
It differs from the coming fullness, of which 
itis the pledge or token,only in degree. There is 


34 


~ 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


a unity in Christian experience which many have 
failed to discern. Because of this failure, crude, 
extravagant things have been spoken and written 
regarding “the higher Christian life.” Christian 
life is the life of Christ ministered by the Spirit, 
and no higher life than that is possible. It is 
the highest life. An increased measure of that 
life may be obtained, but nothing superior can 
ever be obtained. All that is possible is a more 
abundant supply of what is already possessed, a 
fuller baptism of the life which enswathes the 
soul,a deeper draught of the living water at which 
our thirst has been slaked, a more copious shower 
from the low-bending clouds out of which a few 
prophetic drops have already fallen. No advance- 
ment can be made in the kind or quality of our 
spiritual life, but great advancement can be made, 
ought to be made, in the extent of its possession. 
The prayer, “ Yet more, O my God, yet more,” 
offered by Xavier before setting out for Rome 
upon his missionary labors in the East, is one 
which every Christian ought continually to offer. 
More life, more of the breath of God, more of the 
heart of Christ, more of the Spirit’s power,every 
Christian needs. 

Jesus having been glorified, and His ascension 
gift having been bestowed, the one thing neces- 
sary to its enjoyment is that it be received. After 


85 


After Pentecost, What? 


Jesus was glorified He breathed upon His disci- 
ples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” 
After He was glorified the apostles proclaimed 
the glad evangel, “ Repent and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the 
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Spirit.” (Acts ii. 38.) Because the 
Holy Spirit has been given it is possible to receive 
Him; and because He has been given in fullness 
it is possible to receive Him in fullness. The full- 
ness that dwells in Him is not only for all believ- 
ers without distinction or exception; it is also for 
all believers without restriction or limitation. 
The Spirit is not given ina more attenuated form 
and in a scantier measure in the present day, than 
He was given in the apostolic days; and deeply 
do we wrong Him, if by a painful contrast be- 
tween His plenteousness and our poverty we pro- 
duce the impression upon others that He is deal- 
ing niggardly with us. If we receive sparingly, 
the fault is ours, not His. We have not because 
we ask not; we have little because we take in 
little. From the ocean of fullness of His grace, 
which contains an inalienable supply for all, it is 
our privilege to draw until there is nothing to 
desire, and we are compelled to cry out with John 
Fletcher of Madeley, “O Lord, either enlarge 
the vessel or withdraw Thy Spirit.” We are not 


86 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


straitened in the Lord, but always in ourselves. 
The question of the prophet, “O Thou that art 
named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the 
Lord straitened?” (Micah ii. 7), carries with it 
its own answer. It is always God’s way to pro- 
vide more than we can use. In the natural world 
He has given us a water supply that we can never 
exhaust; He has given sunlight for a thousand 
worlds like this; He has stored up an almost 
illimitable supply of electrical power which we 
are just beginning to tap; He has held in reserve 
new forces which we are just beginning to dis- 
cover. His supplies are always ahead of our ne- 
cessities. So in the spiritual world only a small 
portion of what has been provided is being used 
up. The resources placed at our disposal do not 
grow less, however freely we may draw upon 
them. They are bottomless, they are infinite, 
they are eternal. What folly, then, to remain 
poverty-stricken, and live poor, pinched, hunger- 
bitten lives when there are unsearchable riches at 
our command! Why be content to eat of the crumbs 
which fall from the Master’s table, when it is our 
privilege, as the friends of the King, to sit at His 
board and enjoy the bountiful banquet which He 
has prepared? Why remain in a condition of spir- 
itual pauperism, living a hand-to-mouth sort of life, 
expending all our strength in the effort to keep 
87 


After Pentecost, What? 


ourselves alive, when the invitation is sounding 
in our ears, “ Eat ye that which is good, and let 
your soul delight itself in fatness”? Why be sat- 
isfied to suck a few drops of refreshment from 
the shrunken wine-skins of a formal faith, when 
we may come to the fountain of life and drink our 
fill? What is required is not an increased supply, 
but an increased capacity of spiritual reception? 
Nothing could be more out of place than the 
prayer: “Lord, increase our supplies.” And 
nothing could be more in place than the prayer, 
* Lord, increase our faith.” 

To be “filled with the Spirit” is not only a 
privilege, it isa duty. The blessed imperative, 
“ Be not drunken with wine wherein is riot, but 
be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. v. 18), carries 
with it the implication that every Christian is 
under obligation to surrender himself to the 
Spirit, allowing Him to take entire possession of 
him; controlling him in intellect, heart and will, 
in body, soul and spirit, as completely as the 
drunkard is controiled by wine. It is not im- 
plied, however, that the Spirit-filled man will be 
intoxicated with the Spirit, that the stimulating 
and exhilarating effect of a deep draught of the 
Spirit will make him excited and hilarious, caus- 
ing him to upset the rules of social propriety. 
His strength may be as the strength of ten, but 

88 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


it will be under proper direction and restraint, 
and it will be expended in the daily round of or- 
dinary duties more than in the performance of 
occasional spectacular deeds. The fullness of the 
Spirit is not always accompanied with outward 
demonstration. It is often “a tide too full for 
sound or foam.” Rapturous emotions belong to 
certain types of temperament, and are not of the 
essence of spiritual life itself. A dramatic ex- 
perience which might be natural to one would be 
unnatural to others. To most the Spirit comes 
asa gentle influence permeating the whole life 
as the sun permeates the earth in spring. An old 
negro auntie, who had come into this deeper ex- 
perience, said: “ You young ’uns make too much 
noise with your glory and your halelu. When 
you get the real grace, and the real glory, you 
will be quiet and peace-like,—just as if you were 
in the stable of Bethlehem and the mother had 
given you the sleeping babe to hold.” Many 
have still to be reminded that religious hysterics 
are no special sign of grace. In an ancient parable 
itissaid: “The Lord passed by and a great and 
strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces 
the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in 
the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but 
the Lord was not inthe earthquake; and after the 
earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the 


89 


After Pentecost, What? 


fire; and after the fire asound of gentle stillness.” 
(1 Kings xix. 11.) When, on the day of Pente- 
cost, the disciples “ were filled with joy and with 
the Holy Spirit,” it is not strange that in the first 
impulse of their new-born enthusiasm they gave 
way to loud outbreakings of praise. But there 
is no evidence that they were carried off their feet 
by a whirlwind of ecstasy. Some of the on-lookers 
mockingly charged them with being drunk with 
new wine;not, however, because of their holy hi- 
larity, but solely because the gospel message, which 
they proclaimed in a variety of tongues,sounded to 
them like unmeaning jargon. The deepening of 
life always brings the deepening of joy. It isa 
sure evidence that life has been redeemed from 
littleness when its happiness is drawn, not from 
surface things, but from the deep fountain of di- 
vine life opened up within the soul. Those who 
receive the Spirit’s fullness are satisfied from 
themselves. A new source of blessedness has 
been found; their hearts well up and run over 
with holy gladness; their sorrow is turned into 
joy, their tears into smiles, their sighs into songs, 
their night into day. Festal robes are in order; 
for in the coming of the Spirit the bridegroom 
is restored, and they greatly rejoice because of 
His voice. But theirs is a quiet and chastened 
joy. They “rejoice with trembling.” They ex- 


go 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


press their grateful love in thanksliving even 
more than in thanksgiving. They cannot afford 
to waste their joyous emotions in pious ejacula- 
tions, but wisely save them up that they may be 
converted into motive power for the production of 
good works. “The joy of the Lord is their 
strength”; it is their strength for service, it puts 
iron into the blood, invigorating their flagging 
energies and enabling them to scale with elastic 
and unfaltering step the steep mountain path of 
self-denying toil that rises up before them. 

In the case of the disciples at Pentecost the re- 
ceiving of the fullness of the Spirit was as sudden 
as His coming. ‘There was a great cloud-burst 5 
floods were poured upon the dry ground ; the souls 
of the waiting, praying band in the upper room 
were filled by a mighty inrush. But this is not 
the normal way. The outpoured Spirit is now 
present in the heart as a secret spring whose 
-waters never cease to flow, and from Him fresh 
accessions of life are daily, hourly, and momen- 
tarily received. Life comes to its fullness in the 
soul as itcomes to its fullness in nature. After a 
late spring there is sometimes an unexpected 
burst of new life, and leaves and blossoms make 
their appearance at a single bound; but generally 
the fullness of summer life is reached by gradual 
and orderly stages. Alike in the natural and 


gli 


After Pentecost, What? 


spiritual kingdoms the normal method of de- 
velopment is that of gradual growth: “first the 
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the 
cater 

Come as it may, suddenly or gradually, this 
fullness of life from the Spirit fills the vessel of 
being to the brim with every needed grace. The 
Spirit is an all-inclusive gift. To be filled with the 
Spirit is to be “filled with power,” to be “ filled 
with wisdom,” to be “ filled with the knowledge of 
God’s will,” to be “filled with all the fullness of 
God.” Over against human emptiness the Spirit’s 
abundance is placed. The blessings which He 
conveys are as numerous and as varied as human 
needs. “ He is able to make all grace abound unto 
us, that we, having all sufficiency in everything, 
may abound unto every good work.” Those who 
receive His abounding grace are fitted for any 
undertaking to which they may be called. The 
qualifications of Stephen for the office of deacon 
were that he was “a good man, and full of the 
Holy Spirit”; the secret of Peter’s power in 
preaching was that “he was filled with the Holy 
Spirit”; the reason why the disciples “spake the 
word with boldness” was that “they were all 
filled with the Holy Spirit”; so in like manner 
the one fact which explains every rich and royal 


Q2 


An Influx of Spiritual Life. 


life in which good works abound, is that the Spirit 
has been received in fullness. Every Spirit-filled 
life is a life that overflows into other lives; it is 
a life that is given back to God as a free-will offer- 
ing, to be consumed upon love’s altar in daily 
sacrifice for others. The Spirit fills the heart 
with generous deeds; He widens the horizon of 
spiritual vision that He may enlarge the sphere 
of life’s aims; He broadens the social sympathies 
that He may increase the sweep of life’s activi- 
ties; He creates a race of Great Hearts who burst 
asunder the fetters of race prejudice and sectional 
selfishness, and embracing in their affections the 
whole of human kind, make the scope of their 
ministry as wide as God’s mercy. If any life is 
narrow and selfish, barren and unfruitful, it may 
be taken for granted that the place which the 
Holy Spirit occupies in it is a very small one. 
Where there is little practical outcome in the life 
there has been but little incoming of the Spirit 
into the heart. What is given out will always 
be in equal ratio with what has been taken in. 
Outflow and inflow will always correspond. When 
the Spirit’s power is but feebly felt, service will 
come hard; when the heart is filled with His 
power, service will be a delight. Raise the mill- 
gate and the water will rush out of the dam, fill- 


93 


After Pentecost, What? 


ing the empty flume, and driving the machinery 
of the mill. Get the heart filled with the Spirit 
and there will be abundance of motive power to 
drive all the machinery of Christian work. 


94 


CUA Bie RV Lie 


THE SPIRITUAL MAN. 


“Rivers to the ocean run, 
Nor stay in all their course; 
Fire, ascending, seeks the sun; 
Both speed them to their source. 
So asoul that's born of God, 
Pants to view His glorious face, 
Upward tends to His abode 
To rest in His embrace.” 
R. SEAGRAVE, 
In harmony with the law of evolution, the 
coming of the Spirit led to the coming of the 
spiritual man. The best never comes first. The 
highest types are the latest born. Nature’s no- 
blest offspring is always the last. As in nature 
there were prophetic types which proclaimed the 
coming of the natural man, so in the spiritual 
world there were prophetic types which pro- 
claimed the coming of the spiritual man. It 
would be absurd to assert that prior to Pentecost 
spiritually minded men did not exist; all that is 
maintained is that at Pentecost a higher stage of 
development in the spiritual ascent of man was 
reached. A new creative epoch brought in a 
new religious type, which is designated “the 
spiritual man.” Among the characteristics of 


this new type of man are the following: 


25 


After Pentecost, What? 


1. The spiritual man is aman possessed by 
the Spirit. He is contrasted with “the natural 
man,” who is described as a man “having not 
the Spirit.” (Jude 19.) He is also contrasted 
with the pre-pentecostal saint, who is a man 
whose heart God has touched, but who is not 
“married to the Spirit.” He is a Spirit-led, a 
Spirit-governed man; permeated and suffused 
by the Spirit, one with Him in all things, speak- 
ing and acting as he is moved by Him. 

Man has a body, but he is a spirit—a spirit in 
prison. Call him an animal if you will, but re- 
member that he is a spiritual animal; and remem- 
ber also that the differentiating element in him 
is not the animal but the spiritual part. In his 
innermost nature he is allied to the spiritual king- 
dom. For that kingdom he was made, to that 
kingdom he properly belongs, and in that king- 
dom he ought to live. When he takes his place 
on the animal plane, and lives an animal life, he 
falls below his better self, and comes short of 
the high destiny to which his spiritual nature 
calls him. According as he yields supremacy to 
the lower or the higher part of his nature he 
sinks to an animal man, or rises to a spiritual 
man. 

Man is built up tier upon tier. At the bottom 
is the flesh, the earth principle which he receives 


96 


The Spiritual Man. 


from the dust of the ground, and which was or- 
iginally good, but, having been degraded by the 
fall, it is now the part from which the strongest 
temptations spring. Above that is the soul, or 
life principle, which he has in common with the 
animals, and by which he is united to the lower 
creation. At the top is the spirit, which he has 
in common with higher beings, and which con- 
nects him in kinship with God. According as 
he lives in one part of his nature more than in 
another he is designated carnal, natural,or spirit- 
ual. If the flesh conquers, and he slavishly obeys 
the solicitations of his lower nature,he is a carnal 
man. If neither the flesh nor the spirit decidedly 
prevails, but the life of the soul holds away ; if, 
in short, he allows himself to be acted upon 
through the outer, sensuous world without regard 
to the higher world of spirit, and centers all his 
interest in the world of sense, he is a natural, a 
psychical,a soul-governed,an unspiritual man; but 
if, through the indwelling of the Spirit of God, 
the spirit conquers the flesh with all its appetites 
and passions, so that flesh is no longer his life-ele- 
ment; if, in fine, he is ruled from the center to 
the circumference of his being by the Holy Spirit 
of God, whom he has received as his renewer 
and sanctifier, he is a spiritual man. 

But the natural man, while destitute of the 


97 


After Pentecost, What? 


Spirit, is not destitute of a spirit. He is simply 
spiritually undeveloped. He has not come to 
spiritual consciousness. His spiritual nature is 
asleep, and his intellectual and animal natures 
only areawake. The higher life engermed with- 
in him lies dormant, being unvivified by the 
Spirit of God. The spiritual nature being the 
highest, the coronal part, the part that is nearest 
heaven, it is the part that is touched first by the 
Spirit of God; and the power which comes down 
for man’s regeneration passes from it to the soul, 
from the soul to the body, sanctifying the entire 
nature of man. The power that destroys works 
from below upwards; the power that saves works 
from above downwards. When the Spirit of 
God gains a footing in the spirit of man there is 
no part of his complex nature to which His heal- 
ing, saving power does not extend. 

2. The spiritual manisaman who has gained 
the mastery over the material. He lives a life of 
aloofness. He pursues “desires whose purpose 
does not end in time.” He is in the world, but 
the world is not in him. Outward things do not 
dominate his life; they do not crush the manhood 
out of him. His spirit is not earth-bound; it is 
not chained down to this terrestrial ball. He is 
the Lord’s free man; the world is beneath his feet 5 


the body is kept under; the spirit is on the top; 
98 


The Spiritual Man. 


the animal sensuous life is subordinated to the 
spiritual life; the animal and sensuous powers, 
instead of being consumed in the gratification of 
lawless desires, are conserved for higher uses in 
the spiritual sphere. He is under the control of 
a higher law than “the law in the members,” 
which wars against “the law of the mind”; and 
which brings the higher nature “unto captivity 
under the law of sin.” The law which holds sway 
within him is “the law of the spirit of life, which 
makes him free from the law of sin and death.” 
When the spiritual obtains the supremacy in any 
man he is brought into harmony with the laws of 
his being, into conformity with God’s sovereign 
will, and into adjustment with the holy order 
which reigns in the spiritual universe. 
Materialism is the Egypt out of which God 
calls his spiritual Israel. It is the house of bond- 
age from which every spiritual man is delivered. 
The world has lost its dominion over him. If 
he should fall into the Dead Sea of materialism 
he will not remain in it; if he should be sucked 
down by the undertow of its treacherous currents 
he will rise to the surface and strike for the shore. 
He is not like the sow that has been outwardly 
washed, and which may at any time return to her 
wallowing in the mire, because it is her nature so 
to do; but having been transformed from a sow 


Se 


After Pentecost, What? 


to a sheep, if he falls into the mire he will be 
certain to struggle out, and hasten to the green 
pastures. The upward tendency within the spirit- 
ual man is stronger than the downward tendency ; 
the voice within has greater power over him than 
the voices without; in the irrepressible conflict 
of his dual nature the spirit has the upper hand. 
The azima bruta, or earthly mind,is being stead- 
ily displaced by the anzma divina, or heavenly 
mind; an upward struggle has begun which will 
go on until the day of redemption. The existence 
of this struggle is the one conclusive proof that 
the Spirit of God has come into a human life. 
In the natural man there is no conflict; in the 
spiritual man there is a conflict which never 
ceases until the spirit brings the flesh into sub- 
jection. In the natural man the flesh is pam- 
pered, in the spiritual man the flesh is crucified. 
The moment a man opens the windows of his 
spirit-home towards the New Jerusalem, and wel- 
comes the Spirit, who in this time of consum- 
mation is actively present, he begins to walk 
upon an upward path; he is drawn up into the di- 
vine life; polarized towards the divine center; his 
tastes and aspirations are changed; his powers 
of mind and body are under a new controlling 
power; the idea of his life is not pleasure but 
goodness, not self-indulgence but self-denial. He 
100 


The Spiritual Man. 


is a spiritual man in the making. Remnants of 
carnality may be found adhering to him as parts 
of the shell are sometimes found adhering to a 
newly-hatched bird; but these, being alien to his 
new nature, are soon shed off, and he is free to 
rise sunward, heavenward, Godward. He now 
lives in the spiritual realm. He “ minds the things 
of the spirit.’? Conscious of his divine heredity, 
he is conscious also of his divine destiny. As 
the Spirit’s man he is aspiritual man; as a Spirit- 
filled man he is aman in whose life the supremacy 
of the spiritual is established. 

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the 
determining power in the renewal of man, the 
power by which mastery over the sensuous life 
is obtained, is the Spirit of God, who works in 
and through the spirit of man. The presence of 
the Spirit makes a man spiritual. “ Ye are not 
in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the 
Spirit of God dwell in you.” (Rom. viii. 9.) 
But while it is true that man of himself cannot 
achieve freedom from the thralldom of the flesh, 
that he cannot of himself rise superior to his 
earthly environment and live upon the spiritual 
plane, that he cannot, in short, become of him- 
self a spiritual man, it is equally true that he can- 
not obtain victory over the flesh and become a 
spiritual man, apart from his own action in the 


IOI 


After Pentecost, What? 


matter, in the rightful use of the God-given power 
of spiritual initiative. Not only must there be a 
distinct and definite surrender of the human spirit 
to the Divine Spirit, but there must be also contin- 
uous and active co-operation with Him, such as is 
expressed in the words, “If ye live after the flesh 
ye shall die; but if, by the Spirit, ye mortify the 
deeds of the flesh, ye shall live.” (Rom. viii. 13.) 
So completely do the divine and human activities 
blend together that it is difficult, yea, impossible, 
to define their respective limits, and show where 
the one ends and the other begins. We are 
not always conscious of the divine operations, nor 
indeed is it necessary that we should be. The 
thing of practical importance is that the work re- 
quired ofus be faithfully performed. The husband- 
man may not recognize the hand of God in the 
ordinary operations of nature; but if he does his 
part, God will work with him, and his fields will 
yield their increase. Nowhere is this law of 
spiritual interaction more forciby expressed than 
in the words, “ Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh 
in you both to will and to work for His good 
pleasure.” (Phil. ii. 13.) Here is not merely 
a promise, but a statement of a fact. “God is in 
you by His Spirit, energizing you, helping you 
in all your struggles after higher things; there- 
102 


The Spiritual Man. 


fore work out your own salvation, fearing and 
trembling lest you come short in spite of such 
efficacious help.” 

The responsibility of the natural man for be- 
coming a spiritual man lies in the fact that with- 
in his moral nature there is a center of causality 
which may be quickened and fructified by the 
Spirit of God, as the life-germ in the buried seed 
is quickened and fructified by the sun; but un- 
like the seed-germ, which cannot help respond- 
ing to the sun’s influence, he may yield to or re- 
sist the warm, sweet influences which play upon 
him; allowing himself to be drawn up into the 
sunshine, or choosing to rot in the darkness of 
his own corruption—a self-destroyed soul. 

3. The spiritual man is a man to whom all 
of life is spiritualized. In his thought there is 
no distinction between things sacred and things 
secular. It is not that the sacred has become com- 
mon, but the common has become sacred; it is 
not that the spiritual has been secularized. but the 
secular has been spiritualized. To him plowing 
is as spiritual a work as praying; feeding the 
hungry as spiritual as preaching the gospel. In 
his eyes the ministering saint at the mountain 
foot is no less glorious than the transfigured saint 
on the mountain top. To him humanity is spirit- 
ualized. He knows no man after the flesh. 


103 


After Pentecost, What? 


Earth’s poor distinctions have faded out. Men 
are judged, not by rank or wealth, but by char- 
acter; they are looked at and loved, and labored 
for as spiritual beings. Arrtificiality he discards. 
His standard of measurement, his sense of values, 
is spiritual; and the spiritual is the real. The 
stream of his spiritual activities flows along nat- 
ural channels; his service to God and man is ful- 
filled in natural ways. ‘The more spiritual he is, 
the more natural he is. 

The spiritualizing process begun at Pentecost 
is in line with the movement towards the spirit- 
ual which has always characterized the unfold- 
ing purpose of God in the world. ‘This move- 
ment is scen in science. In all the developments 
of science there is a tendency towards the spirit- 
ual. Matter is being touched to finer issues. 
Wind and water have been displaced by steam; 
steam is being displaced by electricity. The 
coarser kinds of power are being transmuted into 
those which are more refined and subtle. The 
ultimate aim of science seems to be the sublimat- 
ing of the material. The same movement towards 
the spiritual is even more marked within the 
sphere of human life and activity. Material things 
are being subordinated to spiritual ends; earthly 
powers are being made subservient to spiritual 
results. Literature begins to feel the burden of 


104 


The Spiritual Man. 


a spiritual mission; art, with newly anointed 
eyes, sees God in everything, and glorifies the 
common life from which He had __ hitherto 
been shut out; natural gifts are being spiritual- 
ized in the lofty uses to which they are conse- 
crated ; drudgery is being made divine by having 
a spiritual purpose imported into it; business is 
being spiritualized by making it a beneficent min- 
istry to others; politics are being spiritualized 
by regarding the service of the state as the serv- 
ice of God; wealth is acquiring a new value in 
view of the spiritual motives from which it is 
being made and ministered; the whole round of 
daily duty, pleasure, and trial is being ennobled 
and sublimed by giving to every part of life a 
new spiritual significance. If the growing ascend- 
ency of the spiritual has any meaning, it means 
the growing consciousness of the oneness of 
man with the life of God, and the growing as- 
cendency of the Spirit of God in man, and in the 
world. 

4. The spiritual man is a man who is fitted 
to do spiritual work. He has the heart to do it, 
for he is filled with the Spirit’s sympathy and 
love. Like the Spirit, he gives himself to others, 
seeking for nothing in return. Everything that 
pertains to self is strained out of his motives. 
He is satisfied to be the Spirit’s mouth to speak 

105 


After Pentecost, What? 


for Him, His hand to work for Him, in His min- 
istry of grace to the world. 

Without spirituality all gifts, natural and ac- 
quired, are useless and vain. The esthetic spirit 
is often worldly; culture is often as selfish as 
commerce; knowledge is often sought with the 
greed of a gourmand; music and art are often 
made to pander to self-glory; inventions and dis- 
coveries which ought to minister to the general 
comfort and well-being of men are often made 
the instruments of self-aggrandizement and op- 
pression. But let aman be moved by the im- 
pulses which come from the heart of the Spirit 
and he will be constrained to bring the fruits of 
his life as an offering of love, and lay them down 
at the feet of the Divine Master whose service is 
the service of man. 

Along with the heart to do spiritual work, the 
spiritual man has the ability to do it. For spirit- 
uality is power. Religious work done in the 
spirit of the world amounts to nothing. As the 
sunlight may be reflected by an iceberg, the truth 
may be spoken by an unregenerate man, and God 
may bless His own truth by whomsoever spoken; 
but the truth has greater power when reinforced 
by the life of him who utters it. Napoleon, hear- 
ing his officers discussing the merits of the bayo- 
net as an instrument of warfare, closed the debate 

106 


The Spiritual Man. 


with the remark, “The value of the bayonet de- 
pends upon the man behind ite, oe) tp Ever yain- 
strumentality employed in doing Christian work 
this is emphatically true; its eflicacy depends 
upon the man behind it. Puta Spirit-filled man 
behind the most imperfect instrument and it will 
thresh mountains. Put “men whose heart God 
has touched” behind the truth and it will touch 
other hearts. Oh, the folly of trying to do spirit- 
ual work by worldly people! For spiritual work 
spiritual men are needed. The demand of the 
hour is not new methods so much as it is new 
men—spiritual men—men who are filled with the 


power of the Holy Spirit. 


107 


CHAPTERS VILE 
SPIRITUAL HOLINESS. 


‘Holy Spirit, dwell with me; 
I myself would holy be; 
Separate from sin, I would 
Choose and cherish all things good; 
And whatever I can be 
Give to Him who gave me Thee.” 
Tuomas T, Lyncu. 
THE Spirit is called the Holy Spirit not only 
because He is essentially holy, but because He is 
the author of holiness. The heart-temple in which 
He dwells is a holy place. When He enters the 
heart, sin departs. Before the fiery darts of His 
countenance the python of unrighteousness, with 
her evil brood, crawls away discomfited to find a 
hiding place in the dark corners of the universe. 
On the principle that two bodies cannot occupy 
the same space at the same time, but that one will 
displace the other as a ship will displace a volume 
of water equal to its own weight,the Holy Spirit 
crowds sin out of the soul. “One love expels 
another,” says St. Jerome. “The expulsive 
power of a new affection” is athought with which 
Dr. Chalmers has familiarized us. As the light 
expels darkness; as dead leaves are pushed off 
by the swelling of the new leaf-buds; or as the 


108 


Spiritual Holiness. 


snow slides off the cottage roof when the fire is 
kindled on the hearth, so evil disappears when 
the Holy Spirit, the Conqueror of sin, takes 
possession of the heart. 

Sin is not to be overcome by direct resistance, 
but by the operation of an opposing principle. 
As every poison has its antidote,every sin has its 
opposite and overcoming grace. “This I say 
then,” exclaims St. Paul, “ walk in the Spirit, 
and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” 
(Gal. v. 16.) Walk in the power of the Spirit 
and the desires of the flesh will be unheeded. 
“Fill the bushel with wheat,” says John New- 
ton, “and you may defy the devil to fill it with 
tares.” After the weeds of sin have been pulled 
up, let them be supplanted by occupying the life 
with new aims and pursuits. 

The principle of salvation by displacement may 
be illustrated by a reference to Greek mythology. 
As the Greeks returned from Troy their course 
led them past the island of the sirens. They 
had been warned on no account to listen to the 
seductive melodies of these treacherous nymphs, 
for all who gave ear to their enticing strains felt 
an unconquerable desire to leap overboard and 
join them, when they either perished at their 
hands or were engulfed by the waves. Odysseus, 
in order that the crew might not hear the song 

TOQ 


After Pentecost, What? 


of the sirens, filled their ears with melted wax. 
But when the Argonauts were wafted by gentle 
zephyrs towards the abode of the sirens, and the 
enticing strains fell upon their ears, and they be- 
came powerfully affected, Orpheus, perceiving 
their danger, took up his lyre, and commenced 
one of his enchanting songs, and so powerfully 
did he absorb the attention of his listeners that 
they passed the island in safety. Thus it is that 
when the Spirit wins the ear the spell of the 
tempter is broken; when He dwells and reigns 
within the heart, proclivity to sin is taken away ; 
when He pre-empts and pre-occupies the life, solic- 
itations to evil meet with no response; when He 
sanctifies the nature “ wholly”—or, as Luther 
translates the word, “through and through,” the 
Prince of this world finds nothing to which he 
can appeal; when He saturates the soul He ren- 
ders it noncombustible,so that the sparks of temp- 
tation fall harmlessly upon it. 

Sometimes it is said that before the Holy Spirit 
can come in as the sanctifier of the soul, sin must 
be thrust out. Would it not be more correct to 
say that when the Holy Spirit comes in, He 
thrusts sin out? He does not flow into a self- 
emptied soul like air into a vacuum. Hard in- 
deed would be our lot if the task were imposed 
upon us of clearing out from our hearts the rub- 

IIo 


Spiritual Holiness. 


bish of worldliness and sin, to prepare for the in- 
dwelling of the Spirit. Those who occupy them- 
selves emptying their hearts of evil things are 
like sailors working the pumps in a leaky ship 
into which the water comes faster than it can be 
pumped out. The task before them is one to 
which the twelve labors of Hercules were as 
nothing. It is not self-emptying, but divine-in- 
filling that is needed. The command is not, 
“Empty your hearts and I will fill them,” but 
“Open your hearts and I will fill them.” The 
way to put off the old man is by putting on the 
new; the way to get the heart cleansed is by al- 
lowing the Destroyer of sin to enter it. Wherever 
the Holy Spirit gains a footing everything alien 
to the will of God must go. His presence in the 
soul assures the complete expulsion of sin. En- 
ter the Holy One of God; exit sin! 

But holiness is something more than the expul- 
sion of sin; it is the impartation of a spirit and 
principle of righteousness. The “sanctification 
of the Spirit” (1 Peter i. 2), that is, the sanctifi- 
cation of which the Spirit is the efficient cause, 
is heart-holiness. It consists in the cleansing of 
the hidden fountain of life within the soul. Of 
all true believers it is said that they “have puri- 
fied their souls in obeying the truth through the 
Spirit.” (1 Peter i. 22.) Through the instru- 

II! 


After Pentecost, What? 


mentality of the truth, and the agency of the 
Spirit, inward purity is realized. The Jewish 
conception of holiness was separation from out- 
ward uncleanness; the Christian conception is 
separation from sin. It is not enough to have 
clean hands, there must be clean hearts also. An 
Irish boy in a Ragged School gave the right 
answer to the question, “ What is it to be holy?” 
when he said: “Please your Reverence, to be 
holy is to be clean inside.” Inside cleanness is 
what Christianity demands. “The method of 
Jesus” was, as Matthew Arnold has pointed out, 
that of “inwardness.” In His teaching Jesus dis- 
tinguished the essence of religion from its forms. 
Religious acts might be outwardly faultless, but 
if the inward disposition from which they sprung 
was wrong He denounced them as morally 
worthless. The salt had lost its savor if the 
spiritual side of the religious life was discarded. 
The “form of godliness” was an offense in the 
sight of heaven if not animated by “a spirit of 
holiness.” ‘Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, 
hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cum- 
min, and have left undone the weightier matters 
of the law, judgment, mercy and faith; but these 
ye ought to have done, and not to have left the 
other undone.” “ Ye blind guides,who strain out 
the gnat and bolt the camel.” “Woe unto you, 
II2 


—_—s— 


Spiritual Holiness. 


scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse 
the outside of the cup and of the platter, but with- 
in they are full of extortion and excess. Thou 
blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup 
and of the platter,that the outside thereof may be- 
come clean also.” Even at its best the religion 
of the Pharisee was a thing of mechanics rather 
than of life. It embraced the moralities, but it 
lacked the spiritualities; it was in good form,but 
it was destitute of a right spirit. Hence our Lord 
says,“ Except your righteousness shall go bevond 
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” —- 
unless it is athing of the heart—unless,in a word, 
it is morality transfigured with love—* you shall 
in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” 
Not the least revolutionary thing about Jesus as 
a religious reformer was the introduction by Him 
of a new religious model. His typical saint was 
not the punctilious observer of religious forms, 
but the self-confessed sinner, in whose peniten- 
tial heart a spark of divine life had been kindled. 
He hurled from his lofty pedestal the self-applaud- 
ing Pharisee, and put in his place the self-abasing 
publican. ‘Tested by the standard which He set 
up,many types of modern piety stand condemned. 
A visitor at a“ Higher Life Camp Meeting” was 
asked if he had “got holiness.” “I have none 
to speak of,” was the reply. The more holiness 


113 


After Pentecost, What? 


any man has, the less he wants to speak of it. 
Humility is one of the graces of the Spirit. 
Sweeping away ata stroke all claim to theo- 
cratic privileges not founded upon the possession 
of spiritual principles, Paul says: “He isnot a 
Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circum- 
cision which is outward in the flesh; but he isa 
Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is 
that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, 
whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Rom. 
ii. 28, 29.) The true Jew is the spiritual Jew; 
and true circumcision is spiritual circumcision. 
“The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, 
but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Spirit”—it is not an exterior but an interior thing. 
The New Testament sets no value whatever upon 
outward deeds from which the spiritual element, 
which alone can give them value, is absent. “If 
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I 
give my body to be burned, but have not love, it 
profiteth me nothing.” “By decds of law,” that 
is, by “deeds of law” as opposed to “works of 
faith,” “there shall no flesh living be justified.” 
Faith is the inward seed from which acceptable 
works are grown. And “faith is not a mere con- 
fidence that a work of grace will be done for us, 
but a consent that a work of grace shail be 


wrought in us.”* It is the surrender of the soul 
*“The Pauline Theology,’’ Gecrge B. Stevens, D.D., p. 298. 


114 


— 


Spiritual Holiness. 


to Christ that He may work in it all His holy 
will. 

A vital principle of righteousness, or, as it has 
been called, an ethical temper, enters the soul by 
faith, working from the center of being to the 
circumference of life. The tree is made good 
that the fruit may be good; the spring is cleansed 
that the issuing streams may be pure. In the 
surrendered soul the Holy Spirit becomes a new 
creative principle; infusing new powers of life; 
generating a holy disposition from which holy 
actions flow; awakening a holy love that leads 
its possessor to do the loving thing to others; im- 
parting inward graces which become active forces 
working themselves out in holy duties. “Those 
who are partakers of the Holy Spirit” manifest 
in good deeds the fruit of the Spirit, which is 
“love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, faith- 
fulness, meekness, self-control.” The Holy Spirit 
within their hearts is like the fairy lamp in the 
German tale, which transfigured the squalid hut 
of the fisherman into a palace of burnished silver. 
In some real and mysterious way the Holy Spirit 
fills their spirits and becomes the spring of all 
their motives. He makes them pliant to divine 
control, plastic to divine influence, submissive to 
divine authority. They are brought “in sancti- 
fication of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprink- 


Ris 


After Pentecost, What? 


‘ling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter i. 2.) 
Their sanctification has two sides, separation from 
sin, and separation to the service of God. They 
are purified in their hearts,and they are purified un- 
to Christ,that they may be “a people for His own 
possession, zealous of good works.” They cease to 
do evil, and they learn to do well, using every 
particle of power which they possess for the work- 
ing out of the divine purpose in the world. 

Holiness is wholeness. ‘To be made holy is to 
be made whole. A holy life is a complete life; 
and a complete life is a life completely filled 
and controlled by the Spirit of God. Such a life 
was that of the Ideal Man. His was a life which 
at every step was subject to the Spirit’s leading. 
At the beginning of His public ministry, when 
He was being baptized, the Holy Spirit descend- 
ed, and abode upon Him. (Luke ili. 22.) After 
His baptism He returned from the Jordan “ full 
of the Spirit,” and fully prepared for His work 
(Luke iv. 1); that He might be tried in the fire, 
“Te was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, be- 
ing tempted of the devil” (Luke iy. 2); victorious 
over the assaults of evil,“‘ He returned to Galilee 
in the power of the Spirit,” and began His work 
(Luke iv. 14); standing up in the synagogue of 

Nazareth, He openly proclaimed Himself to be 
the Messiah by appropriating to Himself the 

116 


Spiritual Holiness. 


prophetic words, “The Spirit of the Lord is 
upon Me” (Luke iv. 18); He “cast out demons by 
the power of the Spirit” (Matt. xii.25); He “ went 
about doing good, being anointed with the Holy 
Spirit and with power” (Acts x. 38); “through 
the Eternal Spirit He offered Himself unto God,” 
as a sacrifice for the world’s sin (Heb. ix. 14); be- 
ing“ put to death in the flesh,” He was “ quickened 
in the Spirit” (1 Peter iii. 18); and was“ declared 
to be the Son of God in power, according to the 
Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from the 
dead” (Rom. i. 4). The Spirit’s work in Him 
was the norm of His work in man. What was 
to Him a possession was to His disciples a prom- 
ise; but all that the Spirit was to Him He was 
yet to become to them, and to the whole of that 
humanity which He represented. 

The wholeness of man is from the Spirit of 
Wholeness. In every promise of the Spirit’s 
help the need of His indwelling to make men 
holy, is implied. When Jehovah says, “I will 
put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk 
in My statutes,” it is assumed that no one can 
walk in the way of righteousness without the 
Spirit’s strength. Feeble as infancy, man, to 
walk uprightly, has to lean heavily upon the 
Spirit’s arm. The power that sustains is a power 
that dwells within. When the thought of the divine 

LE] 


After Pentecost, What? 


transcendence is made prominent the conscious- 
ness of sin and weakness is intensified, but when 
the thought of the divine immanence is made 
prominent there is a more vivid consciousness of 
the working of a power by which sin is to be 
overcome; a power by which the soul’s diseases 
are to be healed; a power by which a worldly life 
is to be changed into a spiritual life, and a life of 
selfishness into a life of sacrifice. When at Pen- 
tecost the transcendent God became immanent, a 
transformation took place in the lives of the disci- 
ples which was more noteworthy than the mirac- 
ulous signs by which the descent of the Spirit 
was accompanied. Inthe outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit power to be holy was bestowed upon sin- 
ful men. 

The three leading figures employed in Scrip- 
ture to describe the Holy Spirit give special 
prominence to His work of spiritual purification. 

He is compared to five, which cleanses the soul 
from earthly alloy. In announcing the Messiah’s 
advent John the Baptist said, “He shall baptize 
_ you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire >” that is, 
He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, of 
which fire is the fitting emblem; He shall send 
a fiery baptism upon you, which will purge the 
moral nature from every taint of impurity; He 
shall come upon you as “a Spirit of burning,” 


118 


Spiritual Holiness. 


kindling in the heart a flame of celestial love 
which will burn downward, consuming all self- 
ishness and sin, and burn upward in a pure, 
white flame of deathless devotion. What is true 
of the solar fire is true also of the fire of heavenly 
love—“ there is nothing hid from the heat there- 
of.” With subtle power it searches into the in- 
most recesses of the soul, melting, cleansing and 
transforming whatever it touches, burning up 
the dross of character, refining the spiritual na- 
ture “as gold tried in the fire.” Benignant is this 
aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work, as He kindles 
in the heart the consuming fire of holy love. 
“His fiery glow tells of mercy, not of woe.” He 
destroys sin that He may save the sinner. 

He is also compared to wafer, because as the 
element of spiritual cleansing He is to the soul 
what water is to the body. The two baptisms, 
“ of water and of the Spirit,” are always connected 
in Scripture; the one being the outward sign of 
which the other is the inward reality. The Holy 
Spirit is freely given,that by His sanctifying in- 
fluence it may be possible to maintain moral pu- 
rity in the midst of an impure world. Power for 
purity comes to all who need it “through the 
washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the 
Holy Spirit, which is poured out upon us richly 
through Jesus Christ our Savior.” (Titus lil. 5, 


I1g 


After Pentecost, What? 


6.) This inward, ethical baptism of the Spirit 
which comes through the concurrent operation of 
the Spirit with the baptism of water in the laver 
of regeneration, is to all who receive it the means 
by which they are united to Christ, and become 
one with Him in such a deep spiritual sense that 
they die with Him unto sin, are buried with Him 
to the world, and rise with Him to newness 
of life. 

In the form of a dove, the Holy Spirit who 
broods unseen over a sinful world descended visi- 
bly upon Jesus at His baptism, and abode upon 
Him, to signify the closeness of His contact with 
the humanity which He represented. Under this 
emblem the Spirit’s gentleness and purity are ex- 
pressed. Those upon whom He descends and 
abides, become dove-like in nature. They are 
made gentle and pure. They rise above things 
that are vile, and shine resplendent in the light 
of heaven. Of such it is said: “ Though ye have 
lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings 
of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers 
with yellow gold.” (Ps. Ixviii. 13.) As flocks 
of doves may be seen rising calm and unsoiled 
from the eastern house-tops, where they have 
lain during the heat of the day among the pots 
and rubbish—and soaring aloft in the sunshine, 
their outspread wings shining like burnished sil- 

I20 


Spiritual Holiness. 


ver and gold, so souls touched with the Holy 
Spirit, having a passion for purity begotten with- 
in them, rise out of the dust, and soaring into the 
heavenly sunlight, leave behind them the corrup. 
tion of earth, ever rising higher and shining 
brighter until lost to view in the ineffable glory. 


I21 


CHAPTERSLX) 
SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 


‘‘Thy commandment all alone shall live 
Within the book and volume of my brain,” 
SHAKESPEARE, 

PENTECOST marks advancement from outward 
to inward authority; from outward obedience to 
inward obedience; from outward restraint to in- 
ward constraint; from a law written upon parch- 
ment to a law written in the heart. A new cov- 
enant was made with man, and the old covenant 
passed out of force. This change is announced 
in the words, “This is the covenant that I will 
make with them after those days, saith the Lord: 
I will put My laws in their hearts, and upon their 
minds will I write them.” (Heb. x. 15,16.) Un- 
der this new covenant we are now living. 

1. Lhe authority of God over man ts spirit- 
wal. ‘lhelaw written of old “in tables of stone” 
is now written “in tables that are hearts of flesh.” 
A center of authority is set up in the kingdom of 
the soul. We are governed from within. We 
do not carry in our hands a code of rules, and 
when in doubt regarding any question in morals 
ask, “Is it nominated in the bond?” So “ex- 
ceeding broad” is the law of the Lord written 


Te2i2 


Spiritual Authority. 


within the heart that it covers every possible con- 
tingency in moral action. The Mosaic law was 
given to the Jew as a Jew, and was restricted in 
its application; the law written upon the heart is 
given to man as man, and is of universal appli- 
cation. Unchanging in its essence, it is flexible 
in its outward forms of expression, and readily 
adapts itself to the ever changing conditions of 
individual and social life. 

At the first dawnings of moral consciousness 
this inward law is recognized. “Conscience and 
consciousness rise together. Mind conscious of 
self is also mind conscious of obligation. The 
‘I am’ and the ‘I ought’ are twins, born at the 
same moment.”* The ethical authority under 
which every man finds himself, is not the product 
of education, as Herbert Spencer, in his “ Data 
of Ethics,” has attempted to make out. It is some- 
thing which education may develop and direct, 
but which it cannot create. The law within 
comes from above. “ 7y law is within my 
heart,” is the only satisfactory explanation of the 
existence of a secret inward authority which 
every man is bound to acknowledge and obey. 

2. The authority of God over men is admtin- 
istered by Christ. The rule of God is media- 
torial. Unto the Son all authority has been 


*"Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History,” by A. M. 
Fairbairn. Page 47. 


124 


After Pentecost, What? 


given. “The government is upon His shoul- 
ders.” His nail-pierced hand holds the scepter of 
universal dominion. He is the world’s true King, 
who lays down the laws which are to govern men 
in the whole course of their moral conduct. He 
is more than an interpreter of law; He is the 
law-giver. ‘To His claims for supremacy con- 
science says, Amen. His will, when known, be- 
comes the law of life. When His authoritative 
voice is heard saying, “Follow Me,” a new cen- 
ter of authority is established, a new standard of 
action is erected, and His word comes to the 
spirit of man as the word of its rightful king. 
His authority reaches deep. It has to do, not 
alone with outward relations and with overt acts, 
but also with hidden principles that govern the 
thoughts and intents of the heart. He declares 
the man of unchaste desire to be an adulterer, 
and the man who cherishes hatred towards his 
brother to be a murderer. His ethical edicts reach 
to the secret motives which are the springs of 
action. Within the domain of the spirit He holds 
undisputed sway. 

3. The authority of God over man ts admin- 
istered by Christ, through the Holy Shirit. 
Christ issues His commands “through the Holy 
Spirit” (Acts i. 2), not always, however, by an 
outward word but often by an inward voice. 


124 


Spiritual Authority. 


The end for which the Spirit works is to secure 
the recognition of the inner supremacy of Christ 
on the part of those who are the nominal sub- 
jects of Hiskingdom. It was as king that Christ 
was rejected, and it is as king that the Spirit 
seeks to have Him accepted. The true royalty 
of the crucified Christ is revealed to men by the 
Spirit that crown-rights may be accorded to Him, 
and that before His cross as before a royal throne 
the spirit of man may prostrate itself in loving 
and loyal submission, exclaiming, “ Lord, what 
wilt Thou have me to do?” The cross, made 
known by the Spirit in all its spiritual signifi- 
cance,has become a throne of kingly power from 
which Christ is ruling the world. It is because 
the Spirit is making the real Christ known to 
men that so many are led to pay their highest 
homage to the thorn-crowned King, and to yield 
complete surrender to His sovereign will. 
Apart from the work of the Spirit upon the 
hearts of men, the influence of Christ would soon 
have faded out, and Christianity have become a 
spent force. By the coming of the Spirit the 
spiritual authority of Christ was perpetuated, and 
His authority made a reality in human experi- 
ence. Millions who have never seen the Lord 
have been led to bow before His invisible pres- 
ence, and to accept His will as the absolute and 
125 


After Pentecost, What? 


unconditional imperative in their lives. Receiv- 
ing the Holy Spirit into their hearts, they have 
subordinated their wills to the will of Him whose 
claims He has pressed upon them; and have put 
the reins of government into His hands, giving 
Him the same unqualified control of their lives 
that the pilot has of a ship. In vain does the 
Spirit move upon.any soul unless He finally suc- 
ceeds in gaining his unconditional surrender to 
the Man of Nazareth. 

4. The authority of God over men ts exercised 
by Christ, through the Holy Spirit, by means of 
the tmpartation of a new princtple and spirit of 
obedience. This principle and spirit of obedience 
is love. God’s authority over man is complete, 
His will is done on earth as it is done in heaven, 
when man comes under the dominating power of 
the royal law of love, which is the summation of 
all law, the essence of all religion. In the old dis- 
pensation the love of law was inculcated; in the 
new dispensation love as a law isinculcated. The 
Old Testament saint exclaimed, “ How love I Thy 
law!” the New Testament saint exclaims, “ Thy 
love is my law.” The question which lies at the 
heart of Christianized ethics is, What does love 
demand? Christianity is duty touched with love. 
Its supreme law of righteousness in the house- 
hold, in social life, and in the kingdom of God, 


is love. 
126 


Spiritual Authority. 


To awaken love in the heart, that a center of 
spiritual power may be formed from which the 
whole life can be moved, is the ethical aim of 
the Holy Spirit. He is present in the hearts of 
men as a power that makes for love, and through 
love makes for righteousness. “The love of 
God”—not love like God’s merely, but God’s 
own love-—“is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
Holy Spirit who is given unto us,” that a spirit 
of obedience may be created within. As abit of 
the magnet itself, so, cold, lifeless hearts magnet- 
ized by the Spirit, through the manifestation of 
the magnet itself, so, cold, lifeless hearts mag ne- 
tized by the Spirit, through the manifestation of 
Christ as the object of supreme affection, possess 
something of the very love of God. Christ as 
the revelation of sovereign love is the vehicle of 
sovereign power. When He takes the heart cap- 
tive He exerts an all-commanding, all-constrain- 
ing power to bring the whole life into harmony 
with the divine will. The enthronement of His 
love in the heart, by the Spirit, marks the begin- 
ning of the spiritual rule of God. “Ifa man 
love Me,” He says, “he will keep My words.” 
Again, reasoning from effect to cause, He says, 
“He that hath My commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth Me.” Love in the soul 
is the soul of obedience, not because it is a sub- 


127 


q 
After Pentecost, What? 


stitute for it, but because it is the source of it. 
“ Love is the fulfilling of the law.” It fills to the 
brim the vessel of duty. It is the only coin in 
which all manward and Godward obligations can 
be fully paid. Iflove be withheld the highest 
rights are violated, and the holiest claims uncan- 
celled. The only life which fulfills the law of 
righteousness is a life in which love is supreme, 
and the only life in which love is supreme is a life 
in which Christ is supreme, and the only life in 
which Christ is supreme is a life in which the 
Holy Spirit is supreme. 

The authority founded upon love is compatible 
with the largest possible freedom. The law of 
love which Christ promulgated and exemplified, 
the law by which He rules, is “the perfect law 
of liberty.” There is no true freedom save in 
conformity to His higher law. He is afree man 
who finds liberty in law, and law in love. When, 
by the incoming of the Spirit, Christ’s law of 
love is set up in the heart, the soul’s emancipa- 
tion proclamation is issued. “Where the Spirit 
of the Lord is, there is liberty.” No one is so 
free as he who has made a full and glad surren- 
der to Christ, and is governed from within by 
His law of love. In law-service there is bond- 
age; in love-service there is perfect freedom. 
Loveless labor is drudgery. Labor of love is a 


delight. 
128 


Spiritual Authority. 


In their spiritual development many Christians 
are still in the bondage of Judaism. They are not 
under grace, but under the law. They live in 
the seventh chapter of Romans rather than in the 
eighth; they are in subjection to rules as irksome 
and grinding as those of the Mosaic system, de- 
liverance from which caused the early Christians 
to sing their loudest peans of praise. Living by 
external rules rather than by inward principles, 
they are in constant dread of doing wrong. They 
walk in a Garden of Eden full of forbidden trees; 
they chafe against the restrictions that environ 
them; they cannot do the things they would, and 
the things they feel compelled to do are hardships. 
Bound in everything by hard and fast rules,their 
very privileges become restraints, their benefits 
become burdens. They are serfs, not sons; they 
live under “the covenant of works which gender- 
eth to bondage.” In their experience the remark 
of the Rev. B. Fay Mills, the well-known evan- 
gelist,is verified, that “to be a legalistic Christian 
is harder than to be a perfect Jew.” And worse 
than all, whenever they attempt to reinforce a 
waning sense of divine authority,and stiffen them- 
selves to greater fidelity to duty, instead of seek- 
ing to establish a more centralized form of gov- 
ernment within their hearts, they keep adding 
rule to rule, thereby tightening the fetters by 


129 


After Pentecost, What? 


which they are bound. When they ought to oc- 
cupy an impregnable stronghold they spread their 
forces around an outer wall, which breaks down 
faster than they can repair it. If they cultivate 
keenness of moral sensibility they but increase the 
measure of their self-crimination; and if they re- 
double their efforts to obey the Master’s will 
they render more bitter their sense of thralldom. 
A more unhappy lot can hardly be imagined! 
Very different is the experience of Post-Pente- 
costal Christians, who have exchanged the slavery 
of the law for the freedom of the gospel. They 
live on the sunny side of the narrow way. They 
are “joyful in their King.” They “delight in 
the law of the Lord after the inward man.” 
Their hearts leap up with eager response to the 
Lord’s commands. In answer to every call to 
duty they make reply, “I delight to do Thy 
will, O my God; yea, Thy law is within my 
heart.” The service they render is not a thing 
of enforced conscription, but of voluntary obedi- 
ence; it is not a thing of outward compulsion, 
but of inward impulsion. A new spirit reigns 
within. Obedience is spontaneous. ‘The yoke 
of Christ is easy because it is “lined with love”; 
His burden is light because love gives strength 
to bear it. Hislaw of love has power of enforce- 
ment at the heart of it. Christ Himself as the 
I30 


Spiritual Authority. 


embodiment of love is the center of the circle of 
obligation. To the principles of His gospel life 
is conformed. Every action is regulated by 
that inward law, which has been designated 
“the law of faith.” The Spirit’s prompt- 
ings are followed, His voice obeyed, until that state 
of complete emancipation is reached described by 
Paul in the words,“ If ye are led by the Spirit ye 
are not under the law.” What need of iron clad 
vows and pledges have those who have the Spirit 
Himself for their law? With them all these child- 
ish things have passed away. They belong to an 
infantile condition which they have outgrown. 
They are part of the burdensome yoke of legal- 
ism from which they have been mercifully de- 
livered. Norisk is taken in allowing Christians to 
do whatever they please, when they please to do 
only what the Lord commands; no risk is taken 
in allowing them to be alaw unto themselves 
when they faithfully follow the leading of the 
Spirit in their lives. Anchored in the immuta- 
ble principles of righteousness, they can swing 
widely with safety. There is no danger that 
they will abuse the liberty with which Christ has 
made them free, when all the liberty which they 
claim is liberty to do what is right. Any one 
may be safely trusted, who can say, “I will walk 
at liberty because I keep Thy precepts.” 
ip oue 


After Pentecost, What? 


The authority that demands obedience to prin- 
ciples rather than to specific rules must needs be 
rational. It must make its appeal to the intelli- 
gence of those over whom it Is exercised. Its 
reign must be the reign of reason. The service 
which it demands must be “a reasonable service.” 
Divine commands are never arbitrary. The 
Lord thanks no.one for yielding a blind, unrea- 
soning obedience to His word. He does not ask 
for subordination to His will until the reason is 
won. He permits us to question before we obey. 
“Who is the Lord that He should reign over us?” 
is a permissible and pertinent inquiry. In the 
interpretation and application of the written Word, 
in which the Spirit has revealed His will, reason 
has to be exercised. It is not always to be taken 
literally, as if it consisted of indisputable axioms. 
Take, for example, the following utterances of 
Christ and try to construe them in a literal sense: 
“ Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him 
that would borrow of thee turn not thou away”; 
“Take no thought for the morrow”; “ Wash one 
another’s feet”; “ Resist not him that is evil, but 
whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn 
to him the other also”; “When thou makest a 
feast call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor 
thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, but bid 
the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.” 

£32 


Spiritual Authority. 


It is not meant that we are to empty our purse 
into the hands of any impecunious brother who 
may make preposterous demands upon us, but 
that we are to be generous-hearted towards our 
more unfortunate fellowmen, giving them, ina 
friendly way, all the assistance within our power ; 
it is not meant that we are to be thoughtless or 
indifferent about the morrow, but that we are to 
take no anxious, worrying, corroding thought 
about it; it is not meant that we are to practice 
literal feet-washing, but that we are to manifest 
the spirit of humility and loving ministry sym- 
bolized in that act; it is not meant that we are 
never to offer resistance to wrong, but that we 
are not to resist wrong from passion or revenge, 
or answer personal insult otherwise than with 
meekness; it is not meant that we are not to 
gather our well-to-do friends around our social 
board, but that in all our social enjoyments we 
are to be mindful of the poor, being careful neither 
to excite their envy nor to exclude them from a 
share of our bounty. Zat, in substance, is un- 
questionably the meaning of these hard sayings 
of Christ; and they are neither unreasonable nor 
impracticable when common sense is employed in 
their explanation. Upon many perplexing ques- 
tions Christ gives no authoritative word what- 
ever. In His teaching “ primal duties shine aloft 


133 


After Pentecost, What? 


like stars”; but minor duties are often not re- 
vealed at all. They are matters of inference. We 
require to reason them out. He might have made 
them plain to us, but evidently He thought it 
better to leave them to our individual judgment. 
Among the questions left open are questions of 
casuistry, questions of amusement, and questions 
touching the observance of forms and customs. 
All of these are matters of conscience with the 
individual. Every man must act upon them ac- 
cording to his own conviction; or rather, accord- 
ing to his interpretation of the will of his Lord. 
Any interference with the right of private judg- 
ment within the sphere of things in which those 
questions are embraced, ought to be indignantly 
resented. “Let no man judge you in meat or in 
drink, or in respect to a holy day, or of the Sab- 
bath days, which is a shadow of things to come, 
but the body is Christ.” Think for yourself; act 
for yourself; for without the exercise of your 
rational faculties there can be no soul-growth. 
Those who act without reason remain in spirit- 
ual childhood. It is perfectly fitting that a father 
upon leaving home should give minute directions 
to his little children, telling them how to fill up 
their time during his absence; but to his grown- 
up sons and daughters it is enough for him to 


say, “I leave you to your honor; do what you 


134 


Spiritual Authority. 


think is right.” The direction which our absent 
Lord has given us is, “Occupy till I come”; do 
whatever you think I would have you do. To 
that all-comprehending command nothing can be 
added that will increase its significance, or aug- 
ment its binding power. And when that com- 
mand is changed into a pledge, and any one 
solemnly says, “I promise to do whatever my 
Lord would have me do,” there he ought to stop. 
Any addition to that pledge must of necessity 
partake of the nature of a descending climax. 

It was by following this broad principle of in- 
terpretation that President Wayland, holding up 
in his hand a copy of the New Testament, could 
say, “This book teaches me how to run a col- 
lege.” Did he find inthe New Testament a com- 
plete system of rules for college administration? 
Of course not. But he found there certain great 
ethical principles which an enlightened judgment 
could apply to the whole round of college admin- 
istration. In the same way the Bible teaches 
how to run a farm, or a mill, or a railroad. Par- 
ticular duties are not defined, but certain guiding 
principles are furnished which sanctified com- 
mon sense can apply to all the varied exigencies 
which may arise in complex conditions of social 
life. Under the Spirit’s guidance we are to make 


intelligent application of the teachings of Jesus 


135 


After Pentecost, What? 


to the whole round of daily conduct, interpreting 
special lessons in the light of his general instruc- 
tions, and difficult questions in the light of what 
he has plainly revealed. With the help which 
has been given of knowing the mind of the Mas- 
ter, we are to work our own way through the 
practical problems which confront us; endeavor- 
ing to live in all things according to the spirit of 
His teachings; accepting His word as divinely 
authoritative because it is the word of the true 
monarch of men; and bowing in sweet submis- 
sion before the scepter of His authority because 
it is the scepter of sovereign goodness and love. 


136 


CHAPTER X. 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 


“Heaven does with us as we with lighted torches do, 
Not light them for themselves.” 
SHAKESPEARE. 

EMERSON says that “when a man comes forth 
from his mother’s womb the gate of gifts closes 
behind him.” This is true of natural, but not of 
spiritual gifts. Emerson forgot Pentecost. Since 
Pentecost the gate of gifts stands open before 
every man. When Christ ascended up on high, 
leading captivity captive, “ He gave gifts to man- 
kind.” (Eph. iv. 8.) The spoils He won He 
scattered as a royal largess. On the day of Pentecost 
the first great distribution took place. The Spirit 
was parted to the disciples as each one had need. 
He appeared upon them as “tongues parting 
asunder, like as of fire”; tongues distributing 
themselves among them. It is not meant that 
each tongue was cleft or forked, but that one 
flame of fire was divided up, so that there rested 
“a glorious crown on every sainted head.” 

What the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews 
distinctly calls “the distributions of the Holy 
Spirit” (Chap. ii. 4) still goes on. The gifts 

137 


After Pentecost, What? 


of the Spirit are not given in bulk, but “in divers 
portions.” They are put up in portable, usable 
form. ‘The one estate is broken up and parcellec 
out among the several heirs; the one stream is 
divided into many streamlets which water separ- 
ate fields, and find their way down separate fur- 
rows. There is no believing heart that*does not 
receive its appropriate portion. All are partakers 
of “the self-same Spirit”; all draw from the self- 
same fountain; all are moved by the self-same 
power. Gift and giver are one. The Holy 
Spirit, whom Irenzus describes as “the divider 
and distributor of the gift of life,” gives Himself 
to all believers. Indeed, the one thing which 
distinguishes Christians from the world is the 
possession of the Holy Spirit. In the apostolic 
benediction, “ The communion of the Holy Spirit 
be with you all” (2 Cor. xiii. 14), reference is 
made to universal participation in the Spirit 
rather than universal fellowship with Him. The 
idea is, “ May the communication of the Spirit be 
enjoyed by you all”; may you all partake in com- 
mon of the gifts which He has to bestow. See- 
ing He has something to communicate to all, 
let every one see to it that he gets the special 
blessing intended for him. 

It is implied that although all Christians re- 
ceive the gift of the Spirit, and the gifts of the 

138 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


Spirit, all do not receive the gift of the Spirit in 
the same measure, and all do not receive the same 
kind of spiritual gifts. All are wrought upon 
by the same Power, but all are not wrought upon 
to the same degree, or to the production of the 
same results. “There are diversities of gifts, but 
the same Spirit. And there are diversities of 
ministrations, but the same Lord. And there are 
diversities of workings, but the same God who 
worketh all things in all.” (1 Cor. xii. 4-6.) 
To adopt the beautiful figure of Cyril of Jerusa- 
lem, “One and the same rain comes down upon 
all the earth, yet it becomes white in the lily, 
and red in the rose, and purple in the violets and 
pansies, and different and various in all the sev- 
eral kinds. It is one thing in the palm tree, and 
another in the vine, and all in all things. Thus 
also the Holy Spirit, one and uniform and un- 
divided in Himself, distributes His grace to every 
man as He wills,” dowering him with ordinary 
or extraordinary gifts according to the work to 
which He has appointed him. 

The distribution of the divine charismata, or 
“ vrace-gifts,” is thus described in 1 Cor. 12. 8-11: 
“To one is given through the Spirit the word of 
wisdom,” that is, the gift of spiritual illumination 
and intuitive perception, which enables him to ap- 
prehend truth at first-hand, and become the organ 


139 


After Pentecost, What? 


of its revelation ;“ and toanother the word of knowl- 
edge by the selfsame Spirit,” that is, the gift of 
understanding and explaining the deeper truths 
of revelation, and showing their harmony with 
one another as parts of one related and organic 
whole; “to another fazth in the same Spirit,” that 
is, the gift of spiritual vision and appropriation, 
the power to see and seize the realities of the un- 
seen world; “to another p7zfts of healing in the 
one Spirit,” that is, ability as the Spirit’s me- 
dium to impart therapeutic impulse that disease 
may be expelled from the body, and the whole 
man restored to the divine order; “to another 
workings of miracles,” that is,the working of those 
“powers” of the Spirit by which the mastery 
over the physical is gained, and man’s headship 
over creation is made a reality; “and to another 
prophecy,” that is,the gift of seership, the power 
of divining truth and forthtelling it, and thus of 
speaking authoritatively to men as a spirit-voice 
from the higher world; “to another d7scerning 
of spirits,” that is, the power of distinguishing 
between good and evil spirits,and between the ut- 
terances prompted by the Holy Spirit,and the spirit 
of evil ;“ to another divers kinds of tongues,” that is 
power to speak with “different,” not with “ other 
tongues,”—-not power to speak foreign languages 
without having learned them, such as was given 


140 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, but power 
to speak as the subjects of a divine afflatus an un- 
known language of the soul, made intelligible only 
by supernatural interpretation; “and to another 
the interpretation of tongues,” that is, power to 
bring the unknown speech of holy ecstasy,in what- 
ever form it may be expressed, down to the com- 
prehension of the uninitiated. This list of gifts is 
by no means complete. If written for the pres- 
ent day it would require to be revised. 

Of these gracious endowments it is said, “ All 
these worketh the one and the same Spirit, divid- 
ing to each one severally as He will.” The 
Spirit’s sovereignty is absolute. He bestows 
His gifts upon all as He will; He works in all as 
He will. He is not tied down by any past methods 
of administration; He is free to give or to with- 
hold the gifts of His grace, just as He deems it 
best for the interest of His church. Some gifts 
are temporary; others cease for a time, to reap- 
pear afterwards. ‘To meet new conditions new 
gifts are added; old gifts become modified in 
their manifestation so that they seem new. The 
number and nature of the Spirit’s gifts always 
coincide with the needs of the times. A gift is 
discontinued when it is no longer required; a 
new gift is added when a demand for it has 
arisen. Spiritual gifts, being essential, are per- 


T4t 


After Pentecost, What? 


petual. Like natural gifts, they are divided and 
operated by the sovereign Spirit; not, however, 
in an arbitrary way, but in harmony with natural 
disposition and capacity. The spiritual is 
grounded in the natural. When spiritual gifts 
are bestowed, natural peculiarities, instead of be- 
ing obliterated, are intensified and enlarged. By 
their exercise natural powers are stimulated to 
their highest activity, and brought to their high- 
est development. But care must be taken to dis- 
tinguish between the improvement of natural 
powers, and the higher gifts of the Spirit them- 
selves. Improved natural gifts are no more 
spiritual gifts than an improved natural man is a 
spiritual man. Spiritual gifts are special endow- 
ments, and are characteristic signs of a state of 
grace. 

In the distribution of spiritual gifts variety is 
secured at any cost. God has been at as great 
pains to secure variety in the spiritual world as 
He has been to secure variety in the natural world, 
When aman comes into being the mould in which 
he is made is broken, so that there may not be 
another exactly like him; and when a man comes 
into the divine life he is furnished with gifts 
which no one else possesses, and hence he is fitted 
to fill a place which no one else can occupy, and 
to do a work which no one else can do. Gifts 


T42 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


define duties. No two people were ever meant 
to render precisely the same service. Each one 
is fitted for some special form of activity supple- 
mental of the work of others. God evidently saw 
that a variety of gifts would secure the best re- 
sults. In the smallest church what a wonderful 
variety of gifts are to be found! One member is 
“apt to teach,” another possesses an eloquent 
tongue, another scholarly tastes and aptitudes, 
another business qualities,another musical talents, 
another administrative power, another the genius 
of sympathy, another the gift of social leadership, 
and thus the whole circle of Christian service is 
embraced, and the church is enabled to edify her- 
self in love, and to fulfill her work of ministry to 
the world. Each man should make the best pos- 
sible use of what he has; he should be himself; 
he should act out himself, and neither ape nor 
envy the gifts of others; he should find the ideal 
of his life in the divine idea expressed in his na- 
ture; he should strive to be the man that God 
meant him to be, and to do the work that God 
meant him todo. Much of the misery of life 
comes from the round man trying to squeeze him- 
self into the square hole, and the square man into 
the round hole. Take by way of illustration two 
men of very different types—President Finney 
and Samuel Rutherford. President Finney was 


143 


After Pentecost, What? 


“a galvanic battery on two legs,” emitting shocks 
of convicting power and causing sinners to cry 
out, “What must I do to be saved?” Samuel 
Rutherford—-“ sweet Samuel,” as he was called 
by his friends—was a gentle,retiring saint, whose 
influence distilled as the dew. Speaking of his 
work in his little parish of Anworth, he says: 
“T see exceedingly small fruit of my ministry; 
I would be glad of one soul to be a crown of 
glory and rejoicing in the day of Christ. I have 
a grieved heart daily in my calling.” We know 
that there was no ground whatever for this self- 
crimination. His was not the evangelistic gift, 
but the gift of edification. The writings of this 
“true saint of the Covenant” have exerted a com- 
forting and confirming influence, and his name, 
which was as “ointment poured forth,” has filled 
the world with its fragrance. And just because 
the gifts of God are so diverse, we are to be care- 
ful not to judge of others by our own standard, 
or depreciate or despise gifts differing from our 
own. God often uses people for whom we have 
no use; He often selects instruments that we 
would discard. He takes the weak things to con- 
found the mighty; He takes the Salvation Army 
to put the church to shame; “yea, the base things 
of the world and the things that are despised hath 
God chosen, yea, and the things that are not, 


144 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


that He might bring to nought the things that 
are; that no flesh should glory. before God.” 
There are places where He can make better use 
of the consecrated cobbler than of the most learned 
divine. When He has the directing of things the 
judgments of men may be reversed, but every 
man will find his proper place and his proper 
work. 

Our conception of the Spirit’s Operations re- 
quires to be widened, so that it shall be made to 
include, not only what is generally designated re- 
ligious work, but also the whole range of useful 
activity. One divine motor force drives all kinds 
of machinery; one divine inbreathing inspires 
men for diversified ends. Holy men of to- -day 
speak and write and work as they are moved by 
the Holy Spirit. They are acted upon along the 
lines of their daily calling. The men of to-day 
are inspired for the work of to-day. When, 
therefore, we read that Bezaleel, the architect of 
the tabernacle, was “ filled with the Spirit of God, 
in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowl- 
edge, and in all manner of workmanship, to de- 
vise cunning works, to work in gold, and in sil- 
ver, and in brass, and in costly stones of setting, 
and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of 
workmanship” (Exod. xxxi. 3-5), We are not_to 
think that the Spirit of God came closer to him 


145 


After Pentecost, What? 


than He comes to the rest of men, or that He 
gave to him more efficient help than He is in the 
habit of giving to every consecrated worker. 
The incidents of time and place do not affect the 
relation of men to God. The same divine Spirit 
who gave skill to Bezaleel in the construction of 
the tabernacle inspired Michael Angelo to build 
St. Peter’s, and Christopher Wren to build St. 
Paul’s; the same divine Spirit who illumined the 
minds of ancient bards and seers illumines the 
minds of modern poets and painters; the same 
divine Spirit who gave wisdom to Solomon to 
build the temple gave wisdom to Watts to invent 
the steam-engine, to Morse to invent the tele- 
graph, to Bell to invent the telephone, and to Edi- 
son to invent the phonograph; the same divine 
Spirit who gave to Daniel that practical sagacity 
in statescraft that led Nebuchadnezzar to charac- 
terize him as “a man in whom is the spirit of the 
holy gods,” is not only in men like Gladstone, 
“ England’s uncrowned king,” but also in men who 
serve on a village school-board; the same divine 
Spirit who spake in and through the apostle Paul 
speaks in and through the humblest Sunday- 
school teacher, whose heart is kept open to His 
influence. The Holy Spirit is for ordinary peo- 
ple no less than for geniuses; for the obscurest 
toiler no less than for the discoverer of nature’s 


146 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


secrets whose life-work marks an epoch in the 
world’s history. He is ever working with men 
in the common relations and activities of their 
lives. The clear head and cunning hand are from 
Him. “There is a spirit in man and the breath 
of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” 
(Job xxxii. 8.) Over against every man’s powers 
and capacities are the Spirit’s manifold influences 
and operations. By the help which He renders 
in natural ways He puts all men under a deeper 
debt of obligation than they can ever know. 
Those who allow Him to help them most please 
Him best; for just in proportion as human lives 
are filled, and moved, and moulded by Him are 
they redeemed from insignificance and failure. 
Never is the Spirit more glorified than in the 
increased usefulness of those who receive the 
larger gifts which He proffers, and learn to do 
the smallest things in the largest way. 

As we ascend in the scale of being we find 
greater diversity and complexity. The more 
highly organized society becomes, the more 
complex it becomes; the more complex it be- 
comes, the more do its wants multiply; and the 
more its wants multiply, the greater is the variety 
of gifts demanded to supply them. In order to 
overtake the rapidly multiplying wants of society 
new spheres of activity are continually opening 


147 


After Pentecost, What? 


up, new subdivisions of labor are continually be- 
ing made. Specialists are more and more in 
order. Any man who would make his life tell 
for good has to resist many strong temptations to 
squander his energies; he has resolutely to limit 
the area of his efforts, saying: “This one thing 
I do.” The same complexity found in the society 
of to-day is found in the church of to-day. Chris- 
tian work was never more diversified than it is 
now. A greater diversity of work demands a 
greater variety of gifts. In the enlarging fields 
of Christian service specialists are just as imper- 
atively needed as they are in the business world. 
There are places which can be successfully filled 
only by trained experts. If, therefore, spiritual 
gifts are to be bestowed according to the work to 
be done, a wider and more varied form of inspi- 
ration is called for. Specialized work demands 
specialized endowments. Diverse work demands 
divers gifts. Never had the figure of the seven- 
branched candlestick, by which the Seer of Patmos 
illustrates the fullness and variety of the Spirit’s 
operations, more significance than it has to-day. 
The seven lamps of fire burning before the throne 
are the seven Spirits of God; or, more correctly, 
they are the seven-fold Spirit of God, who, in 
His manifold operations, is sustaining spiritual 
life, communicating spiritual power, and impart- 


148 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


ing a diversity of spiritual gifts sufficient to 
qualify all who receive them to fill up that which 
remains of the ministration of Christ to the 
world. 

In this diversity of gifts there is unity of pur- 
pose and action. ‘The seven branches of the one 
candelabrum are joined to the same upright shaft, 
and fed from the same bowl; but the separate 
lamps which they support blend their light into 
one. “The body is not one member, but many, 
and all members have not the same office,” but 
all are indwelt by the same spirit, controlled by 
the same head, and work out the same ends. The 
church, the body of Christ, is an organic whole. 
Its work is one. All its members should work 
in harmony and be mutually helpful in their com- 
mon work. No onehas a right to say to another, 
“T have no need of you.” All are needful. Com- 
parisons as to value of service are odious. Each 
one in his place is best. The one who digs the 
foundation is just as useful as the one who builds 
the wall. Abraham Lincoln naively remarked, 
“God must like common people, He made so 
many of them.” He must also like common 
gifts, seeing that He has bestowed so many of 
them. It is by the united efforts of common peo- 
ple that the bulk of the world’s work is done; 
and it is by the union of the common gifts of the 


149 


After Pentecost, What? 


Spirit that the bulk of the work of the church is 
done. “Covet earnestly the best gifts,” means, 
“ Covet earnestly the gifts of the inner life which 
all Christians hold in common.” “Covet ear- 
nestly the best gift,” means, covet earnestly the 
crowning gift of heavenly love, which moves all 
Christian hearts by a common impulse, and unites 
all Christian hands in a common service. 

The diversified gifts of the Spirit are means, 
not ends. When they are made ends in them- 
selves, when they are idolized and ambitiously 
sought after, grave evils are sure to arise. The 
desire to possess the Holy Spirit without being 
possessed by Him, to use Him for our own ends 
without being used by Him for His ends, is essen- 
tially the sin for which Simon Magus was re- 
buked when he sought to purchase the power to 
convey the miraculous gifts of the Spirit to others. 
Not only is the Holy Spirit for us, we are 
for the Holy Spirit. If all that He has igs 
ours, all that we have is His. Hence the 
constant need of reiterating the exhortation 
of Paul to the Corinthians: “Since ye are zeal- 
ous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may abound 
unto the edifying of the church.” (1 Cor. xiv. 
12.) No gift is given for the exclusive benefit 
of its possessor; but for the benefit of others also. 
“The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every 

150 


The Distribution of Spiritual Gifts. 


man to profit withal”; it zs given for his own 
personal profit, but it is given also with the view 
of making his life profitable to God and man. 
What is given at first as an inward illumination 
is to become a public light. “As every man 
hath received the gift, so let him minister, as good 
stewards of the manifold grace of God.” The 
gift of which he is already in possession, the 
gift which is peculiarly his own, is not to be 
used for selfish ends, but is to be made a blessing 
to the world. ‘To tie it up in a napkin and hide 
it in the ground is not modesty, itis sin. All 
God’s gifts are given that they may be imparted. 
They are to be held in trust in the behoof of 
others, and ministered to them as any one has 
- need. The possession of great natural gifts does 
not necessarily make any onea better man. Gifted 
men are often graceless. Nor is the possession 
of supernatural gifts necessarily a sign of extra- 
ordinary piety. It is often connected with moral 
infirmities. Gifts are graces only when they are 
consecrated to high and noble ends. The su- 
preme test of the value ofa life is the use to 
which its gifts are put. The model saint is not. 
a quietist lingering in his closet, in the solitary 
and selfish enjoyment of religious delights; he is 
not an adept of the occult sitting in silent con- 
templation looking out into the infinities, or 


151 


After Pentecost, What? 


looking down into the abysmal depths of his own 
being; but one who goes forth from the secret 
place of the Most High to battle for the right, 
and to scatter blessings broadcast over this sin- 
cursed world. Every spiritual gift is a practical 
power—something that is to be employed fora 
good end. All who share in the distribution of 
the gifts of the Holy Spirit, share in the distri- 
bution of His mercies to others. They are His 
assistants in dispensing spiritual blessing toa 
needy world. The exercise of their gifts is the 
exercise of His beneficence. All that they do 
for the edification of the church, and for the re- 
demption of the world, is done by virtue of the 
chartsmata which they have derived from Him. 
All they give to the world they give as His al- 
moners. In themselves they have no resources. 
They merely distribute the bread with which He 
fills their empty hands; they are the earthen ves- 
sels into which, and out of which, His heavenly 
treasures are poured; they are the mediums 
through whom He is giving Himself perpetually 
for the life of the world. 


152 


CHAE UE REX: 
SPIRITUAL OPERATIONS, 


‘*The outward word is good and true, 
But inward power alone makes new; 
Not even Christ can save from sin 
Until He comes and works within,”’ 

THE interior and spiritual method of divine 
activity which is now in operation dates from 
Pentecost. The soulof man was then opened by 
the Spirit to the influence of Christ, and an in- 
ward, subjective work was begun upon it which 
goes on without cessation. By the Spirit commu- 
nication was formed between Christ and men, that 
He might gain dominion over them and become 
asaving power in their lives. It is a mistake 
to regard this inward operation of the Holy Spirit 
as “replacing the earthly action of Christ,” as 
Van Osterzee does. It is the means by which 
His action is continued; the means by which He 
is made to live in others; the means by which 
His influence is propagated from agetoage. “As 
Christ fulfilled the will and work of the Father 
upon earth, so does the Holy Spirit administer 
the work and will of Christ in human souls,”* 
He is the perfecting principle of divine activity 
*“The Saving Truths of Christianity,’’ Ernst Luthardt, D. D., p. 


177 
153 


After Pentecost, What? 


by which the life of Christ is conveyed to the 
spirit of man; the medium through whom the 
vibrations of vital power which proceed from 
Christ get into man. 

The work which Christ is now doing by the 
Holy Spirit within the spirit of man assumes a 
great variety of aspects, and each separate aspect 
represents the impartation of a distinct spiritual 
blessing. These rich and varied spiritual bless- 
ings, ministered by the hand of the Spirit, and 
set forth in the scriptural aspects of His work, 
we shall now consider. 

CONVICTING. 

Describing the mission of the Comforter, Jesus 
says: “And He, when He is come, will convict 
the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, 
and of judgment.” (John xvi. 8.) He has come, 
and is now prosecuting this world-wide work; 
waking the moral nature of man from its deadly 
slumber by flashing upon it the light of God’s 
holy law; summoning every man before the bar 
of his own conscience, passing upon him, as in- 
ward judge, the sentence of condemnation, and 
causing him to stand guilty in his inner conscious- 
ness before God. The preacher of the gospel 
ought therefore to take it for granted that the 
Holy Spirit always goes ahead of him, preparing 
men to accept the sovereign remedy proffered in 


154 


Spiritual Operations. 


heaven’s name, by revealing to them their dis- 
eased and dying condition. To the universality 
of the Spirit’s convicting work human conscious- 
ness bears unequivocal testimony. Bishop Tho- 
burn,of the Methodist Episcopal Church, declares 
that during a long term of missionary service in 
India he never meta single person who, when 
closely pressed, would not acknowledge his con- 
sciousness of guilt. Often when preaching in 
the bazaars and streets he has asked the people if 
they did not know that they were sinners, and in 
no instance was the hard impeachment denied. 
Is not this what we might expect with the dis- 
tinct promise before us that the Spirit, when He 
came, would bring home the fact of sin to the 
world’s conscience? If Jesus said that the Spirit 
would do a certain work, is it not safe to assume 
that He is doing it? 

The promise is explicit; the Spirit, at His 
coming, was to “convict of sin”; not of sinful- 
ness only, but of sin; of sin in its inner princi- 
ple and essence, and of sin in the concrete as a 
damning reality in the life. This conviction of 
sin, although in a measure independent of the 
historical facts of Christ’s life and death, was 
now to come chiefly through them. The rea- 
son given by Jesus why the Spirit would con- 
vict men of sin is, “ Because they believe not on 


iS 


After Pentecost, What? 


Me”; unbelief in Him as the Son of God being 
regarded as the ground of guilt, rather than as 
the source and tap-root of sin. The meaning of 
these words is not exhausted in the idea that the 
death of Christ gives a new conception of sin, 
nor even in the idea that in the revelation of 
Christ by the Spirit there is the application of a 
new moral test—the revelation of the ideal dis- 
closing the imperfection of the actual; unbelief 
is itself the sin of which the Spirit convicts, as 
it is also the sin which brings the soul under con- 
demnation; “for this is the condemnation” of the 
present age, “that light has come into the world, 
and men love darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds are evil.” 

He was also to “convict of righteousness”; of 
the need of it, of the lack of it, of the source of 
it, and especially of its perfect embodiment in 
Jesus Christ. “He will convict of righteous- 
ness,” says Jesus, “because I go to the Father, 
and yesee Me nomore”; His return to the Father 
demonstrating to the world that, although re- 
jected of man, He was not a sinner, but “the 
Righteous One,” upon whom was set the seal of 
divine approval; the one in whom is realized the 
ideal righteousness which is the law of human 
life; the one who by the completion of His work 
and His ascension to the Father presents a new 


156 


Spiritual Operations. 


type of righteousness by which men are to be 
judged. Professor Henry Drummond makes the 
fruitful suggestion that at certain times one par- 
ticular form of the convicting work of the Holy 
Spirit receives special emphasis, and he advances 
the opinion that in the present day the Holy Spirit 
is specially convicting men of righteousness. 
May not this explain, in part, the absence of deep 
conviction of sin, which many deplore? 

He was likewise to “convict of judgment”; 
making it real and vivid, showing that it is some- 
thing from which there is no possible escape, 
something already begun; a process now going 
on rather than a dramatic act at the end of life. 
He will convict of judgment, says Jesus, “ because 
the prince of this world hath been judged”; the 
fact that the prince of this world has been judged 
already proving that judgment is present and con- 
tinuous, and that all men now stand before the 
judgment seat of Christ. 

What wealth of suggestiveness there is in the 
statement that the Convictor of sin is the Com- 
forter of the sinner! The comparison must not, 
however, be pressed too hard, for the word trans- 
lated Comforter is elastic and may be rendered 
Advocate, or Helper. Literally it means “one 
called to the side of another” to act for him, to 
speak for him, to strengthen him, to sustain his 


157 


After Pentecost, What? 


cause, and thus to bring him cheer and comfort. 
In despair of finding for it an exact equivalent, 
some have simply transcribed the Greek term 
Paraclete. Is the Spirit Christ’s advocate with 
us, as Christ is our advocate with the Father? then 
He as the Infinite Reasoner shows us convincing 
proof of our guilt. Is He a divine helper? then 
He seeks to render help where our need is sorest. 
Is He the Comforter? then He seeks to bring us 
comfort by removing that which is the cause of 
all our misery. Sin is dis-ease; where it has a 
place there can be no true comfort. One sin in 
the soul, like a speck of dust in the eye, will cause 
pain. And since sin must be discovered before it 
can be removed, there can be no comfort except 
through conviction. Probing is never pleasant; 
but unless the sharp probe of conviction enters 
the soul there can be no comfort, for that way 
healing lies. Many a grief-stricken heart, failing 
to see the connection between conviction and com- 
fort, has exclaimed with Jeremiah, “Ah, Lord 
God, surely Thou hast greatly deceived Thy 
people, saying, Ye shall have peace, whereas the 
sword reacheth unto the soul.” We forget that 
itis the divine order that through war comes 
peace, through pain comes joy, through loss 
comes gain, through trouble comes rest, through 
sorrow comes comfort. When the tender-hearted 
158 


Spiritual Operations. 


Spirit wounds it is that He may heal; when He 
reveals to man his ruin it is that He may reveal 
to him the divine remedy; when He exposes to 
view the ugly things nestling within the heart— 
things which man would fain hide from himself 
—it is because He cannot come as the Comforter 
unless He comes as the Convictor. 
REGENERATING. 

The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of life.” (Rom. 
vill. 2.) “Wherever the Holy Spirit is,” says 
Ambrose, “there is life, and wherever there is 
life there also is the Holy Spirit.” In Him all 
life has its source and fountain head. He is the 
creative cause of physical life. Life is not a 
quality of matter, nor the product of organism. 
A physical cause cannot produce a spiritual effect. 
The words of Job, “ The Spirit of the Lord is in 
my nostrils,” or his words, “The Spirit of the 
Lord made me,” present the very explanation of 
the origin of life which is given in the accepted 
scientific formula, “ Life proceeds from life, and 
from nothing but life.” 

The author of physical life is the author of 
spiritual life. A regenerate man is one who is 
“born from above” (John iii. 7); “born of God” 
(John i. 13); “born of the Spirit” (John iti. ay 
In Him the Old Testament promises, “I will put 
within you anew spirit,” and “I will put My 


ao 


After Pentecost, What? 


Spirit within you,” have been fulfilled. Some- 
thing more has transpired than the quickening of 
powers already existing. A new life has been 
generated; a new principle of moral action has 
been imparted; a new process of spiritual evolu- 
tion has been started. “The old things are 
passed away 5 behold, they are become new.” 
The Reformers were manifestly right in at- 
tributing the work of grace in the heart of the 
believer to the infusion of the Holy Spirit. They 
were right also in extending the renewing influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit to the will of man, in 
which is found the seat and center of moral ac- 
tion. It was to them aself-evident truth that “if 
any one should be represented as just and fearing 
God who had not the Spirit, it would be the same 
as if Belial were called Christ.”—(So Luther.) 
But the Reformers did not always make clear the 
important fact that man’s co-operation must go 
hand in hand with the Spirit’s operation ; and that 
hence, although “God opens the closed heart,” 
as the eleventh Canon of the Synod of Dort as- 
serts, He does not open the unyielding heart. 
They overlooked also the additional fact that the 
Holy Spirit is constantly working in the soul for 
the birth of the better life; that from Him comes 
the initial impulse to goodness; that not merely 
does He stand ready to second any attempt to act 
160 


Spiritual Operations. 


righteously that may be made, He works in men 
untiringly “both to will and to work for His 
good pleasure.” Over every heart He is ever 
brooding, seeking to generate within it His own 
holy life, that Christ may be formed within. He 
communicates His life both mediately and imme- 
diately. Sometimes His contact is so close and 
intimate that nothing stands between Him and 
the spirit of man, and His life is imparted by di- 
rectinbreathing. From His enveloping presence 
the vital current—which passes through the 
thickest encasements of worldliness and moral 
indifference to the center of intelligence and 
causality—is transmitted by induction; and 
the spiritual nature, interpenetrated by His quick- 
ening power, stirs into life. Without voice 
or vision the Spirit of God impresses Himself 
upon the plastic spirit of man, and entering into 
it, becomes henceforth its animating life. But in 
most instances the Holy Spirit communicates his 
life mediately, by employing conducting wires 
of some sort for the transmission of His life-giv- 
ing power. These conducting wires are either 
inspired souls or inspired words. According to 
the principle of the economy of forces He makes 
use of the means which are already at command. 
Along the pathways already prepared He sends 
His messages. He utilizes those subtle bonds 


161 


After Pentecost, What? 


of attachment which exist between human souls, 
by making those who are in vital connection with 
Himself the mediums through whom He conveys 
His saving influences to others. The law by 
which He works we are beginning to understand 
by the aid of the teaching of the new science of 
telepathy; one of the commonplaces of which is 
that in the intercourse of spirit with spirit space 
is obliterated. There are modes of spiritual in- 
tercourse regarding which the telegraph and tele- 
phone can give only the faintest suggestion. Be- 
tween people who are in sympathy with each 
other, however widely they may be sundered, 
there is a constant interplay of influence, a con- 
stant interchange of helpful suggestion. Every 
good thought or wish they cherish for each other 
carries with it comforting, uplifting and saving 
influence. Here we are coming to discover the 
true philosophy of prayer. A mother prays 
for her wayward, wandering boy, and it is 
found out afterwards that at the very time 
she was upon her knees he was _ converted. 
How was her prayer answered? Did it go to 
the Central Office in heaven, and was the con- 
nection made there with the boy, and the an- 
swer sent to him direct? Or was the answer sent 
through the mother’s heart to her boy, along the 
already established line of natural relationship 


162 


Spiritual Operations. 


and affection? It is surely more reasonable to 
suppose that it was sent in the latter way. How 
greatly it would encourage people to continue in- 
stant in prayer did they believe that every desire 
for the good of others, “ uttered or unexpressed,” 
actually imparted spiritual help! How eagerly 
would they repair to the fountain of life and en- 
ergy which faith taps if they really believed that 
their souls could be charged with regenerating 
power, which could be sent direct to other souls! 
Paul was evidently not afraid to speak of himself 
as the channel through which regenerating power 
flowed into others. He speaks of the slave Ones- 
imus as “my child whom I have begotten in 
my bonds.” (Philem. 10.) He was his spiritual 
son begotten by him through the power of the 
Holy Spirit. “By whose preaching were you 
converted?” a young man was asked. “ By no- 
body’s preaching, but by my father’s practicing,” 
was the reply. By the power of the Holy Spirit 
as it works through saintly lives many are born 
into the better life. 

But, as has been stated, the Holy Spirit com- 
municates His regenerating power not only 
through inspired souls, but also through inspired 
words. Paul says to the Corinthians: “In 
Christ Jesus I begat you, by the gospel.” (1 Cor. 
iv. 15.) Peter speaks of souls as “ begotten again, 


163 


After Pentecost, What? 


not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, 
through the word of God, who liveth and abideth.” 
(ie Retois.23¢) Ezekiel, in his vision of the valley 
of dry bones, gives a striking illustration of the 
connection between the Spirit and the word in 
the work of regeneration. The prophet was told 
to prophesy unto the dry bones, saying unto them, 
“QO ye dry bones; hear the word of the Lord.” 
He was also to invoke the intervention of a higher 
power by praying,“ Come, O breath, and breathe 
upon these slain that they may live.” Not the 
word only, but the Spirit of the living God work- 
ing through the word, vivifies souls dead in tres- 
passes and sins. The gospel is the power of God 
unto salvation because through it “the breath of 
God enters into dead souls, and they stand upon 
their feet.” (Rev. xi. 11.) The supreme end 
of revelation is the communication of life. 
“ These things,” says Jesus, “have I spoken unto 
you that ye may have eternal life.” Hence the 
importance of preaching the word of the gospel; 
for when it is believed a highway for the Spirit 
is opened directly into the soul; eternal life is 
communicated, and man becomes “alive unto 
God.” To receive the word is to receive the 
Spirit; for when the word 1s received “the Lord 
and Giver of life” enters with it, making those 
who are spiritually dead feel the touch of His 
resurrection-power. 


164 


Spiritual Operations. 


RENEWING. 

All that pertains to the mortal part of man is 
subject to deterioration and decay. Under the 
constant tear and wear of life’s activities the 
body runs down. Life produces motion, and 
motion leads to waste. At every lifting up of 
the hand something goes out of the body which 
never comes back. If there is a break down it 
may be temporarily repaired. By a frugal ex- 
penditure of vital energy the evil day of bank- 
ruptcy may for a time be staved off. But too 
great frugality is fatal, and those who are afraid 
to wear out, rust out. Decay is inevitable, noth- 
ing can arrest its insidious progress. One by 
one the physical powers give out, and the body 
becomes unresponsive to the soul’s mandates. 

But while natural power declines, spiritual 
power may abide and grow. Of all who are born 
of the Spirit it is said that “ though their outward 
man is decaying, yet their inward man is renewed 
day by day” (2 Cor. iv. 16), they having, as St. 
Cyprian has phrased it, “a growth according to 
God.” The infirmities of age which creep on 
apace, are physical. They do not touch the im- 
mortal part of man. While the body is losing 
the soul may be gaining; while the body is being 
drained of its strength the soul may be growing 
stronger. “Age,” says George MacDonald, “is 


165 


After Pentecost, What? 


not all decay. It is the ripening, the swelling of 
the fresh life within that withers and bursts the 
husk.” Spiritual power differs from physical 
power in this respect, its exercise implies in- 
crease. Every forthputting of mental effort 
strengthens the mind. Every forthputting of 
spiritual effort adds to the fund of spiritual power. 
In the spiritual sphere giving doth not impover- 
ish; the going out of virtue from those who come 
in contact with sin-sick souls does not leave them 
weaker. ‘Those who give themselves to others 
in sacrificial ministry save their lives by losing 
them. It is on the physical side alone that ex- 
haustion comes. The spirit is often willing 
when the flesh is weak. Everlasting youth, un- 
fading freshness, undiminished power is the 
glorious portion of those who by the Spirit’s 
abiding presence are “renewed from day to day 
in the spirit of their minds.” Inward renewal 
can come from but one source. The Power who 
created, alone can recreate. The life begotten by 
the Spirit must by the Spirit be nourished and 
sustained. It is His immanent energy that “ re- 
news the face of the earth”; it is His immanent 
energy that renews the moral life of man, and 
keeps the world’s face from becoming wrinkled 
with age; and it is His immanent energy that 
keeps the soul forever young, making its pulse- 


166 


Spiritual Operations. 


beat full and strong, and imparting to it over- 
flowing vigor that makes labor a delight. Those 
who are made over again by “the renewing of 
the Holy Spirit which has been poured upon us 
richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 
lil. 5-7), do not require to whip and spur them- 
selves to duty; they do not find the Lord’s com- 
mands grievous, or His burdens heavy. Their 
strength is replenished as soon as the world steals 
it away. As the fountain in the public square is 
kept full to the brim and running over, because 
fed from an unseen pipe, so they, by maintaining 
connection with the secret source of their life, 
are kept filled with power, however unstintedly 
they may expend themselves for others. It is 
impossible for them to drain themselves dry, see- 
ing that the Spirit of God is pouring in faster 
than they can pour out. 

In the work of renewal the Holy Spirit is con- 
stantly engaged. He stands ready to pour floods 
of recreative energy into every fainting heart that 
will open to receive Him. 


‘‘God’s Spirit falls on me as dewdrops on a rose 
If I but like a rose my heart to him unclose.’’* 


Not the return of the Spirit, but a return to 
the Spirit is needed to bring a spring-time of re- 
newed life to those who have become like a dry 
and sandy desert, from which no vapor rises, and 

*Scheffler, 


167 


After Pentecost, What? 


upon which no dew descends. When languish- 
ing hearts cry out, “Wilt Thou not revive us 
again, that Thy people may be glad and rejoice in 
Thee?” the Lord answers, “Return unto Me 
and I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, 
and floods upon the dry ground.” Like “a cloud 
of dew in harvest”; like “rain upon newly mown 
grass”; like “showers that water the earth,” 
“making what is dry moist and green”; like the 
warm breath of spring which clothes the earth 
with verdure; like the sun of summer which 
mantles the earth with beauty, the Holy Spirit 
refreshes and beautifies the spiritual life of those 
who welcome His presence in their hearts, putting 
upon them the power and beauty of the Lord 
their God. 
ANOINTING. 

Foremost among the blessings of the new dis- 
pensation is the anointing of the Holy Spirit, by 
which all Christians are inwardly appointed and 
ordained kings and priests unto God. The Spirit 
falls upon them, as the anointing oil which ran 
from the head to the skirts of the high priest, set- 
ting them apart from the world, and consecrating 
them forever to the service of the Most High. The 
anointing which they receive is for the object of 
fitting them for useful labor, and not for the ob- 
ject of exalting them to official dignity and honor. 


168 


Spiritual Operations. 


They are dowered with wisdom by the Spirit of 
Light, that they may be qualified for the discharge 
of their kingly and priestly responsibilities. The 
Old Testament promise concerning every anointed 
king and priest was, “The Spirit of the Lord 
shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and un- 
derstanding.” (Isa. xi. 2.) The New Testament 
declaration concerning the fulfillment of that 
promise is, “ Ye have an anointing from the Holy 
One, and ye know all things.” (1 John ii. 20.) 
“Ye have,” not ye shall have, “an anointing of 
the Holy One.” It is now in possession. Fresh 
anointings, fuller anointings, may be daily and 
hourly enjoyed in the future, but every Christian 
has an anointing to start with. The fragrant 
chrism of the Holy Spirit has been outpoured 
upon his heart, consecrating him to the Most 
High, and enduing him with spiritual enlight- 
enment for the special duties to which he is ap- 
pointed. He knows “all things”; not of course 
all things absolutely, but all things within the 
sphere of the supersensible which it is best for him 
to know, all things within the sphere of the prac- 
tical which it is essential for him to know. He 
has that clear insight into things which saves 
him from making any serious blunder, and en- 
ables him successfully to perform the duties of 
his kingly and priestly offices. 
169 


After Pentecost, What? 


Let it be borne in mind that this anointing is 
a divine act. “He that hath anointed us is God.” 
And being a divine act, it confers benefits that 
are substantial and permanent. It is not a tran- 
sient gift, a sudden flash of light that may end in 
darkness. It is not something that may be arbi- 
trarily cancelled. It is significantly described as 
“the anointing that abideth.” 

The service to which this anointing conse- 
crates, and for which it qualifies, is one of joy. 
All those upon whose heads and hearts the Spirit 
is poured out are “anointed with the oil of glad- 
ness above their fellows.” Fora sour-visaged 
religion the Holy Spirit is not responsible. 
There is summer in the soul into which He en- 
ters. “The fruit of the spirit is joy.” “The 
kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Spirit.” The 
day of religious austerity and gloom is forever 
past when the soul has had its Pentecost. 

There was good ground for the rebuke admin- 
istered to a cantankerous preacher, “If you are 
an anointed minister of the Word, you have cer- 
tainly been anointed with vinegar.” Evidence 
of the Spirit’s anointing is seen in the presence 
of the graces of the Spirit. As the kings and 
priests of the old dispensation were anointed with 
oil made odorous with sweet spices, the kings 
and priests of the new dispensation are anointed 

140 


Spiritual Operations. 


with the odorous oil of the Holy Spirit, that they 
may be made “a sweet savor of Christ unto God,” 
and unto men. In “ The Teaching of the Twelve” 
the Spirit is spoken of as “a strange, sweet odor” 
whose perfume pervades the life of the believer. 
The true odor of sanctity is from the SAzritus 
Sanctus. 
TEACHING. 

The Holy Spirit is the great Educator of the 
race. He is ever patiently at work seeking to 
lift it out of darkness into light. The divine 
educative process so clearly discernible in the 
history of the Jewish people is an illustration of 
a general work going on in all the nations of the 
earth. The heavenly Father is providing for all 
His children the highest educational advantages 
within His power; placing them under the direct 
tuition of the Holy Spirit, so that, however great 
may be their lack of opportunity for acquiring 
worldly knowledge, it is possible for them to 
attain spiritual knowledge, and become wise in 
hidden wisdom. 

The work of spiritual instruction carried on 
by the Holy Spirit consists of outward and in- 
ward illumination. He is a pillar of fire, and an 
inward light; He is a lamp to the feet, and a 
light to the soul. Those who do not enjoy His 
instruction in the written Word are not left en- 


Lt 


After Pentecost, What? 


tirely in the dark, but have His direct inshining 
in their hearts. They have also the instruction 
of those lofty souls whom He has specially illu- 
mined to be the world’s spiritual teachers. The 
declaration that “no prophecy ever came by the 
will of men, but men spake from God, being 
moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter i. 21), is not 
to be limited to the utterances of Hebrew proph- 
ets, but is to be widened in its scope to include 
the utterances of all Spirit-taught teachers. Eras- 
mus, when reading Cicero on duty and immor- 
tality, was forced to exclaim: “I am so affected 
that I cannot doubt that the breast from whence 
such things proceeded was in some way occupied 
by the Divinity.” From what other source could 
spiritual light come than from the light-giving 
Spirit? The very fact that Christianity has 
appropriated and assimilated truths from other 
religions, shows that they were not alien to it, 
but must have had a common origin with it. It 
is only in the forms which they assume that the 
Spirit’s lessons differ; in meaning they are all 
the same. His inspoken and His outspoken 
words agree; the personal message whispered in 
the inner ear, and inaudible to others, is one with 
the spoken evangel whose sound goes over all the 
earth; the Eternal Christ of whom from the be- 
ginning the Spirit has been witnessing is one 
172 


Spiritual Operations. 


with the historical Christ whom He is now mak- 
ing inwardly known. Totheinner voice the out- 
ward, written Word is supplemental. It explains 
what the inner voice could only suggest. It 
gives the definite knowledge regarding spiritual 
things for which the world wearily waited 
through long years of deferred hope. How 
happy the Holy Spirit must be that He has at 
length succeeded in putting into the hands of men 
the Book of Life, and how greatly He must long 
to see His great love-gift prized and improved! 
The Bible is in a peculiar sense His book; from 
it He is inseparable; He is its constant inspira- 
tion; His presence in it informs it with life; His 
presence in the mind of him who reads it trans- 
forms it from a dead letter to a living message. 
Through it He is continually speaking; in all its 
words of alarm, entreaty and exhortation He is 
finding a voice. It is the progressive lesson 
book by which He is instructing the race in the 
things of God. 

But while the Holy Spirit is the Instructor of 
the race, the originator and director of the moral 
and intellectual evolution of mankind, He is in a 
special sense the Instructor of those who have en- 
rolled themselves as His pupils and have opened 
their hearts to His teachings. What Cardinal 
Manning claims for the Church of Rome we 


173 


After Pentecost, What? 


would claim for the church of Christ, and for 
each member of it in particular. He says, “We 
are under the personal guidance of the Third 
Person of the Holy Trinity as truly as the apos- 
tles were under the guidance of the Second, The 
condition of our sanctification is Truth, and the 
perpetuity of the office of the Sanctifier presup- 
poses the perpetuity of the office of the [lumina- 
tor.” Within every Christian heart the Spirit 
dwells as the illuminator of truth. His instruc- 
tion is personal and special. He deals with each 
scholar separately, adapting His methods to in- 
dividual peculiarities, and grading His lessons to 
individual capacity and development. But His 
scholars are often dull and slow of heart to ap- 
prehend what He is saying to them. Centuries 
of patient instruction have sometimes been given 
to get a new thought into the world’s mind, and 
a life-time of patient instruction has sometimes 
been given to get a Christian man to grasp the 
meaning of the Spirit’s plainest teachings. Those 
only who appreciate the privilege of being taught 
of the Spirit, and who, in docility of heart, give 
to their divine Instructor their undivided atten- 
tion, make progress in the knowledge of spiritual 
things. For, as Fenelon said, “We must lend an 
attentive ear, for His voice is soft and low, and 
is heard by those only who hear nothing else. 


174 


Spiritual Operations. 


Ah, how rare it is to find a soul still enough to 
hear God speak !” 
LEADING. 

To souls benighted, “ina gloomy wood astray,” 
the Spirit offers Himself as a way-leader. All 
who give themselves up to His guidance He un- 
dertakes to conduct through the forest of life, 
with its winding and intersecting paths, into the 
king’s country. For their safety He becomes 
personally responsible. If they miss the way the 
fault will be in the following, and not in the 
leading. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, 
and He shall direct thy steps,” is a promise that 
never fails. If we “walk in the Spirit”; if we 
take the way the Spirit indicates; if we walk in 
His wisdom and might; if we keep close by His 
side, if we are sensitive to the touch of His un- 
seen hand, and responsive to its gentlest insist- 
ence; if we are open to receive and swift to obey 
the slightest suggestion of His will; if we are 
readily restrained from following self-originated 
plans, as Paul was when “ forbidden of the Holy 
Spirit to preach in Asia”; if we are easily con- 
strained to take up tasks from which we shrink, 
as Philip was when the Spirit said to him, “Go 
join thyself to this chariot,” then have we received 
the sign-manual of divine sonship. “For as 
many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are 


175 


After Pentecost, What? 


the sons of God.” (Rom. viii. 14.) The only 
conclusive evidence that any one is God’s spirit- 
ual son is that he is being Spirit-led. 

One way in which the Spirit leads has already 
been indicated. He leads by influencing the 
mind through the law of suggestion, which a 
certain class of modern philosophers regard as 
the underlying law governing all psychic phe- 
nomena. They hold that in hypnotism, spirit- 
ism, mind-reading, christian science, faith-cure, 
and the like, suggestion is the potent factor. As 
the mind on its objective side receives impressions 
from the outer world, on its subjective side it re- 
ceives suggestions from other minds. Along 
this law the Spirit of God undoubtedly works in 
controlling the wills and lives of men. His ac- 
cess to their minds is direct. Sometimes He 
speaks to them in dreams of the night, when the 
objective side of the mind, that is, the side that 
is turned toward the world, is in abeyance. In 
ways that are mysterious He gives intimation of 
coming events, forewarning of danger, and guid- 
ing to important decisions. But all suggestions, 
human or divine, may be opposed and rendered 
nugatory by self-suggestion; for the free nature 
of man cannot be coerced, and when he follows 
the suggestion of another mind, he does so freely. 
When the Spirit of God whispers in the heart, 

176 


Spiritual Operations. 


His suggestion may not be accepted, His advice 
may not be taken. 

T’o abandon self-confidence and trust implicitly 
to the Spirit’s leading is never an easy thing. 
We dearly love to have our way; we pride our- 
selves upon our powers of observation and judg- 
ment; we plume ourselves on our superior ine 
sight and foresight. But sooner or later there 
comes a time when the heavens are black above 
us, and we cannot take our reckoning, and in our 
extremity we are forced to hush all outward 
voices, and listen to the still, small voice which 
whispers within, “This is the way, walk ye in 
it.” Like a child that is lost, we are glad to cling 
to the unseen hand stretched out towards us in 
the darkness. But oh, it is just as hard to keep 
following as it is to make a complete surrender 
of wisdom and will at the first, for it is impossi- 
ble to anticipate where the Spirit will lead us. 
Surprises are sure to méet us at every step. He 
leads in paths to us unknown; paths which some- 
times go zigzagging like that by which Jehovah 
led His people from Egypt to Canaan. When 
Jesus at His baptism put Himself into the Spirit’s 
guiding hands it is said that “immediately He 
was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be 
tempted of thedevil.” (Matt. iv. 1.) Can it be 
thought strange if the disciple be led the way the 


set) 


After Pentecost, What? 


Master went? It costs much to follow a leader 
who never hesitates to sacrifice comfort for char- 
acter—a leader who seems to care so little what 
hardships are endured so that the goal is reached. 
For fallen worlds, and for fallen spirits, the path 
of progress must ever be a painful one; and it is 
no wonder that the question is asked, Why is the 
way which the Spirit chooses so long and hard? 
Could He not have found an easier way? Cer- 
tainly He could. But could He have found a 
better way? He has not promised to lead us in 
the most pleasant way, but He has promised to 
lead us in the right way; and we may be sure 
that the way He takes, however strange it may 
seem to purblind souls,goes inthe right direction 
and will have a right ending. 

The leading of the Spirit is personal. He leads 
every one along a separate path. Socrates was 
not deceived in thinking that he had a spirit- 
guide by whom he was personally attended. It 
is no explanation of his experience to say that the 
daemon to whose care and control he yielded 
himself up was nothing more than his own better 
self working telepathically through the law of 
suggestion. Is it not more reasonable to think 
that it was the Spirit of God working telepa- 
thically through the law of suggestion? There 
was no essential difference between the experi- 


178 


Spiritual Operations. 


ence of Socrates and the experience of the evan- 
gelically enlightened soul who knows by whom 
he is being led. Many feel themselves to be 
girded and guided by one whom they know not. 
The Christian believer knows whose hand it is 
that leadeth him. Conscious of the Spirit’s lead- 
ership, he can say, “I know not the way I am 
going, but well do I know my guide”; His om- 
niscient eye sees the way in whichI ought to go; 
His omnipotent hand supports me when, footsore 
and weary and exhausted of courage and hope, I 
am about to faint by the wayside. The Power 
which guides the planets in their course, and the 
birds in their flight, isthe Power by which I am 
constantly upheld and led. Fearlessly I follow 
my Lord and Leader down the valley road through 
darkness and danger, for I know that He will 
conduct me in safety up to the mountain top upon 
which He lies forevermore the light of God. 
WITNESSING. 

The doctrine of the witness of the Spirit as en- 
shrined in the words, “ The Spirit Himself bear- 
eth witness with our spirit that we are children 
of God” (Rom. vili.16), may be developed by a 
series of questions. 

1. By whom is the witness given? By “the 
Spirit Himself,” and not by any intermediate 
agency. ‘To each believing heart a personal testi- 


179 


After Pentecost, What? 


mony is given which is direct and immediate. 
The Holy Spirit gives testimony regarding what 
He knows. He does not invent His testimony. 
He is simply a reporter. And if the value of 
His testimony is to be measured by His intelli- 
gence and trustworthiness as a witness, then it is 
infallible, for He cannot be deceived, nor can He 
deceive. 

2. Towhom is this witness given? To the 
believer. This is unquestionably the meaning 
of the words, “The Holy Spirit also beareth wit- 
ness fo ws.” (Heb. x. 15.) Paulis uniting him- 
self with all his fellow Christians when he says, 
“The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our 
spirit.” His thought is that the Spirit bears wit- 
ness along with our spirit. Two spirits, the 
Spirit of God and the spirit of man, bear separate, 
collateral, and independent testimony. That is 
to say, along with the witness of the Spirit of God 
there is the joint or concurrent witness of our 
own spirit. Both witnesses present evidence to 
the same party upon the same point. <A double 
testimony is thus given that frees the soul from 
doubt. Both testimonies are received by the in- 
telligence. As facts of consciousness they are 
beyond denial or dispute. The soul to whom this 
united testimony is given does not drift about upon 
“a make-shift raft of guesses,” but planting his 

180 


Spiritual Operations. 


feet upon a bit of solid standing-ground, he can 
say, “One thing I know.” 

3. Regarding what does the Spirit bear wtt- 
ness? Regarding our heavenly sonship. “The 
Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit 
that we are children of God.” This is the one 
thing of which we are inwardly assured; and this 
is the one thing of which, above all others, the 
children of men desire to be assured. “Am I 
God’s child?” is the deepest question of the heart. 
How precious then is this witness of the Spirit 
which breathes upon “the fading consciousness 
of our heavenly affinity,” and so completely de- 
livers the mind from uncertainty that those who 
have received it can no more doubt their divine 
sonship than they can doubt their own existence! 

4. How does the Spirit bear witness ? Intwo 
ways :— 

a. Outwardly, by the Word. In the Word the 
Spirit shows the ground of adoption, as in the 
heart he gives the evidence of adoption. He does 
not speak of Himself; He speaks of Christ; He 
witnesses for Christ, directing attention to Him 
as the One through whom we become by faith 
the spiritual children of God. 

6. Inwardly, by the change which He works 
in us. He gives us a filial spirit; a spirit of trust- 
fulness, of love, and of obedience. This is “the 


181 


After Pentecost, What? 


spirit of adoption,” which constitutes us sons, 
and gives us the right to a place in God’s spiritual 
family. Without this filial spirit outward filiation 
would profit nothing. “Because ye are sons,” 
because ye who by nature were children of wrath 
and disobedience have by grace become God’s 
loving and obedient children, “God hath sent the 
Spirit of His Son‘into your hearts crying, ‘Abba, 
Father” (Gal. iv. 6), emboldening you to call 
upon God as a child upon his father. Hay- 
ing been placed in the rank of sons, the Spirit 
of the Elder Brother works within you, inciting 
you to exercise the privileges of your exalted 
station by living in abiding communion with the 
Father. 

Not in a whisper, a dream, or an electric shock 
of emotion, but in the upspringing of this spirit 
of filial confidence, love, and dutifulness towards 
God, which transforms a cringing slave intoa free 
and happy child, is found the witness of the Spirit. 
President Edwards rightly defines it as “the dis- 
position of children appearing in sweet and child- 
like love of God, which casts out fear.” This 
new disposition which the Spirit begets, this holy 
love which He sheds abroad in the heart, is un- 
doubtedly the crowning evidence of divine son- 
ship. “He’s an heir of heaven who feels his 
bosom glow with love.” 


182 


Spiritual Operations. ~ 


These two forms of testimony may be viewed 
as antecedent and consequent. The testimony 
of the Spirit in the Word is a testimony /o ws; 
when that testimony is believed it becomes a tes- 
timony zz ws. For the witness of the Spirit touch- 
ing the ground of our sonship we must therefore 
look without; namely, to the Word; for the wit- 
ness of the Spirit with our spirit touching the 
reality of our sonship we must look within ; name- 
ly, to our hearts. The one testimony is an object 
of faith, the other is a conscious experience flow- 
ing from the exercise of faith. To all men has 
been given the witness of divine sonship in the 
Word; but “he that believeth hath the witness 27 
himself.” ; 

SEALING, 

With the witness-bearing of the Holy Spirit is 
intimately connected His work of sealing. Like 
aseal afixed toa document,the Holy Spirit in the 
soul of the believer attests, confirms, and secures 
his position as a child of God, and heir of glory. 
In this work of sealing there is a threefold agency 
employed. 

1. Jtzs God who seals. “We who hath anoint- 
ed us is God, who also hath sealed us, and given 
the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” (2 Cor. 
i. 22.) The King of kings alone has the right 
to use the seal that marks men out as His sons and 


183 


After Pentecost, What? 


heirs. It is His sole prerogative to seal the be- 
liever by attesting his sonship, by confirming his 
inheritance, and by keeping him for his inherit- 
ance. If our sonship is attested by God, who 
dare gainsay it? If it is God who has ratified 
our inheritance, who is he that can reverse what 
has been done? If it is God who has sealed us 
for our inheritance we defy the powers of darkness 
to compass our undoing. “The foundation of 
the Lord standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord 
knoweth them that are His.” He sees into the 
heart. He knows those in whom the Spirit lives 
and works, and He seals them unto Himseltr for- 
ever. 

2. God seals by the Holy Spirit. Believers 
are said to be “sealed by the Holy Spirit of 
promise.” (Eph. i. 13.) The Spirit of promise 
is the Spirit promised by the Old Testament 
prophets, the Spirit whose speedy coming was 
promised by Christ. “ Behold,” He said, “I send 
forth the promise of the Father upon you.” Upon 
the fulfillment of His promise to send the Spirit 
Christ based the evidence of His resurrection from 
the dead, and ascension to the right hand of God. 
The proof that Christ has gone up is that the 
Spirit has come down; and the proof that the 
Spirit has come down is that He dwells in human 
hearts sealing them to God. Every repentant 


184 


Spiritual Operations. 


heart, plastic to His touch like melted wax, re- 
ceives His impress. To every heart that opens 
to His presence He brings the sunny certainty of 
divine acceptance. He comes to all men to lead 
them into sonship; He comes to all who have 
yielded themselves up to His influence to witness 
within them to their sonship. Even those who 
have but the “earnest,” or first fruits of the Spirit, 
are sealed by Him “unto the day of redemption.” 

3. God seals tn Christ. He seals as His own, 
by the Spirit, all who accept of Christ. The text 
already quoted runs, “In whom having also 
believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit 
of promise.” Mark the words “in whom,” for 
they are the key to this suggestive text. God 
seals in Christ, that is to say, He seals those who 
are in Christ, those who are united to Christ, those 
who implicitly trust the Eternal Christ, whose 
presence they feel, but whose name they know 
not, and those who explicitly believe in the His- 
torical Christ revealed to them in the gospels. 
Following the exercise of faith, and testifying to 
its existence, is the inward sealing of the Spirit. 
This sealing of the Spirit is received as soon as 
faith is exercised. It is not an “after-blessing.” 
The question in Acts xix. 2, “Received ye the 
Holy Spirit szzce ye believed?” has been correctly 
changed in the Revised Version to “Did ye re- 

185 


After Pentecost, What? 


ceive the Holy Spirit whex ye believed?” In 
his Pentecostal sermon Peter leaves no long-time 
gap between the supplying of the human con- 
ditions and the bestowment of the divine gift. 
His exhortation runs, “Repent ye, and be bap- 
tized every one of you in the name of the Lord 
Jesus for the remission of sins” (that is, trusting 
in the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission 
of sins),“and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Opirits 7e PECActs 1h 353) 

Following His inward sealing is His outward 
sealing. Those who are sealed in their hearts 
are also “sealed in their foreheads”; those who 
receive the inward sign of sonship known to them- 
selves alone, receive the outward sign which is 
known to all who see them. And when this 
double sealing comes to be clearly recognized, 
those who have given themselves up to Christ, 
and have been received by the Father as His own, 
will not only cry, 


“Here's my heart; oh, take and seal it; 
Seal it for Thy courts above," 


but will also cry, 


‘‘Here’s my life; oh, take and seal it; 
Seal it for Thy work below." 


INSCRIBING. 
Christians are compared to “living letters”— 
letters that breathe, and move, and speak. They 
are also compared to “letters of Christ”—letters 


186 


Spiritual Operations. 


which have Christ for their subject-matter—let- 
ters which are put into circulation to recommend 
Christ to others. These letters are “ written not 
with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living God.” 
(2 Cor. iii. 3.) They are the production of an 
inward Scribe, whose invisible finger is without 
pause writing heaven’s messages upon the tablet 
of the heart. In these living letters of Christ 
the mind of the author is reflected. They show 
what He is thinking about, what He is interested 
in. The subject with which they are filled re- 
veals the touch of His hand. From beginning 
to end they are filled with Christ. To tell men 
of Christ, to inscribe upon their hearts the true, 
spiritual interpretation of Christ’s words and life, 
is the one object of the Divine Penman. 

In this work of writing the things of Christ 
upon the hearts of men the Holy Spirit employs a 
great variety of assistants. Christian parents, 
Sunday-school teachers and all who are the spirit- 
ual instructors of others are His amanuenses. 
Paul,referring to the part which he and his fellow 
laborers had to do in this work, says to the Co- 
rinthians, “ Ye are manifestly declared to be the 
epistle of Christ ministered by us.” The Holy 
Spirit is the real author of every epistle of Christ, 
and all that the Christian teacher writes, he 
writes at His dictation. There is nothing put 


187 


After Pentecost, What? 


into these epistles concerning Christ but what 
the Holy Spirit has made known. Does an aman- 
uensis boast that he has written a letter or a 
book? The glory of the Christian teacher is 
that he is the hand of the Spirit, writing upon 
human hearts that which will outlast inscriptions 
upon brass or marble. Before the records of 
Christ’s life were written down they were written 
in the memory of His followers; before His 
words were gathered into a book they were sa- 
credly treasured in the minds of those who heard 
them, and were by them passed on to others. 
And as Christianity existed before the written 
Word, it will exist after it. When the memoirs 
of Christ’s life have perished in the final confla- 
gration, that which has been written concerning 
Him in the heart by the Holy Spirit through the 
instrumentality of human hands, will be carried 
into the future world, and shall endure forever. 
What has been written by the Spirit in the 
heart becomes visible in the life. The inward 
handwriting strikes out to the surface. It becomes 
legible to others, like a letter written in invisible 
ink when it has been subjected to fire. Ina trans- 
formed character the secret influence of Christ is 
made plainly manifest. Barnabas evidently had 
no trouble in reading those epistles of Christ 
which he found in Antioch, for he says that “ when 
188 


Spiritual Operations. 


he was come and had seex the grace of God, he 
was glad.” He saw the grace of God in the re- 
newed lives of the Gentile converts upon whom 
the Spirit had fallen. The grace of God is always 
visible, not in its essence, but in its effects. The 
epistles of Christ are not only “known and read 
of all men,” but by them Christ is known and 
read of all men. 
INSPIRING. 

The Holy Spirit is the life-giving breath of 
God. As Jesus breathed upon His disciples and 
said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit,” so “the 
breath of life from God” is being continually in- 
breathed into Christian hearts for their revitali- 
zation. It is the life of God and not prayer that 
is the Christian’s vital breath. Prayer is one of 
the means by which this life is indrawn. 

Inspiration is often wrongly located. It is lo- 
cated in books rather than in souls; in works 
rather than in workers. “Men spake from God, 
being moved” (that is, dorne along) “by the 
Holy Spirit,” is the explanation given of the 
manner in which inspired books were writ- 
ten. Men acted from God, being moved by 
the Holy Spirit, is the explanation of the 
manner in which inspired works have been 
wrought. The inspiration is not primarily in 
the words or works, but in the men themselves. 


189 


After Pentecost, What? 


The Spirit of God does not speak through inspired 
phonographs, or work by inspired machines. 
Those whom He employs are not borne along on 
aresistless tide of power. . Their minds and 
wills, although under His control, are allowed 
free play. Moved by the impulse which He im- 
parts, they utter God’s thoughts and do His works; 
but they utter God’s thoughts in their own words, 
and they do God’s work in their own way. 
Inspiration has always been specialized. To 
the writers of the Bible a special form of in- 
spiration was given for the accomplishment of a 
special object. The prophets were specially 
guided by the Spirit to communicate to their age 
a revelation of the mind of God. The apostles 
had something more than common spiritual illu- 
mination. Professor W. Sanday justly differen- 
tiates between general and apostolic inspiration 
in the words: “As in the Old Testament the 
central phenomenon is prophecy, so in the New 
the central phenomenon is the outpouring of the 
Spirit, and the special endowment conferred by 
it upon those who came under its influence, and 
more particularly upon the apostles.”* But, ad- 
mitting that the writers of the Bible were spe- 
cially inspired,need we believe in their inspiration 
less because we believe in present inspiration 


*'Inspiration,”’ p. 398. 


190 


Spiritual Operations. 


more? We may not have concerned ourselves 
too much about the inspiration of the writers of 
the Bible, trying to find out whether it was par- 
tial or plenary, permanent or intermittent; but 
may we not have concerned ourselves too little 
with the measure and manner of divine inbreath- 
ing thatis for ourselves? Deterred by the false 
assumption that the Spirit has no further revela- 
tion of the divine will, or further inbreathing of 
the divine life, to communicate, we have been 
afraid to claim our heritage; we have been afraid 
to think that we might be inspired; afraid to think 
that the Spirit of God might have something to 
say and do through us. 

Inspiration is unquestionably a perpetual fact 
and experience. It is not something that was for 
the ancient Hebrew, and is not for the modern 
Anglo-Saxon. The fountain of divine life and 
light is not yet exhausted. In every age the 
Spirit of God has been inspiring men to speak 
and act for God. He is inspiring men to-day to 
declare God’s message, freshly received, to the 
people of their own generation; and to perform 
works which the exigencies of the hour demand. 
It is generally believed that He inspires the poet, 
the musician and the painter to produce immortal 
works; what we need to see is that His inspira- 
tion is not necessarily for the accomplishment of 


Ig! 


After Pentecost, What? 


mighty achievements,but for the accomplishment 
of “ good works,” be they small or great. It is the 
moral quality of the work that stamps it as di- 
vinely inspired. Inspired men do God-like works, 
and speak God-like words. Inthis practical way 
Paul reasons regarding inspired writings. He 
says: “Every Scripture inspired of God”—or 
more literally, “Every writing God-breathed, is 
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction which is in righteousness.” 
2 Tim. iii. 16.) His argument is that the su- 
preme evidence that any writing is inspired of 
God is found in the fact that it is profitable for 
spiritual ends; and so by parity of reasoning the 
supreme evidence that any life is inspired of God 
is found in the fact that it is profitable to others. 
The evangelist Moody is reported to have said 
that he believes in the inspiration of the Bible 
because it inspires men. On the same grounds 
may we not believe in the inspiration of Mr. 
Moody himself? 

Upon the essential dependence of the finite 
upon the infinite is based the universal need of 
the inspiring power of the Holy Spirit. “No 
man was ever great,” says Cicero, “without a 
divine influence,” or, more literally, “without a 
divine inflowing.” “Nothing godly can be alive 
in us,” says William Law, “but what has its life 


Ig2 


Spiritual Operations. 


from the Spirit of God living and breathing in 


us.” The outbreathed life of a good man is the 
inbreathed life of God. No one who does not 
take deep and frequent draughts of the Spirit of 
Life can keep fruitful in the presence of the mighty 
iceberg of worldliness which is chilling the spir- 
itual atmosphere around him. Outside influences 
may galvanize and hypnotize a soul and give to 
it, for a time, a semblance of life, but only the 
warm, vital breath of God, received by direct in- 
spiration, can impart that true life which makes 
a child of man a man of God. 
INTERCEDING. 

“The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity, for we 
know not how to pray as we ought, but the 
Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Rom. viii. 
26.) When it is possible the Spirit helps us out 
of our infirmity by putting His strength into US 5 
but when our burden is too heavy for our weak 
shoulders, and is in danger of crushing us into 
the ground, He helps us in our infirmity by put- 
ting Himself under our burden, and taking the 
heavy end of it. A special example of His gen- 
eral helpfulness is given. He helps in prayer. 
When encumbered with cares, when oppressed 
with doubts, when faith is giving way, and hope 
is fading out, 


193 


After Pentecost, What? 


“Falling with our weight of cares 
Upon the world’s great altar stairs 
That slope through darkness unto God,” 


He keeps our fainting hearts from sinking in 
despair. He enables us to pray, and in prayer 
we find relief. 

1. He directs us in the matter of our prayers. 
We know not what to pray for; we know not our 
real, our essential needs; we know not what is 
necessary in all the special circumstances in which 
we may be placed, but the Holy Spirit knows, 
and He enlightens us in our ignorance that we 
may not “ask amiss.” He imparts to us the 
measure of knowledge regarding ourselves and 
our needs which we are prepared to receive. 
And when we are sorely baffled, when we come 
to the direst extremity, when we can see no way 
out of our difficulty, when ruin seems irremedi- 
able, when we do not know what to ask because we 
do not know what is best, “He maketh interces- 
sion for us with groanings which cannot be 
uttered.” This may mean that the divine Com- 
forter, who prays without words, 


“With voiceless groanings pleads 
Our unutterable needs;” 


or it may mean that when weak words fail to ex- 
press our inexpressible needs the Holy Spirit, 
knowing our hearts and interpreting our inarticu- 


late longings, or “ piercing the broken language 


194 


Spiritual Operations. 


of our moan,” intercedes through us in our groans 
and sighs. From either point of view the gen- 
eral sense of the words is the same. The Holy 
Spirit, who reads our hearts as an open book, leads 
us in prayer, causing the heart to pray when the 
lips are silent, giving voice to our muffled cry, 
straightening out our blundering petitions. Our 
prayers go to heaven with His endorsement, 
and are not the expression of our ignorance of 
ourselves, but of His perfect knowledge of our 
inmost wants. “The Lord knoweth the mind of 
the Spirit,” as it is reflected in the minds of those 
in whom the Spirit dwells. 

2. Le directs us in the manner of our prayers. 
We know not ow to pray as we ought. We 
know not how to go before the King. We hang 
back, we shrink within ourselves, but the Spirit, 
moving upon us, urges uson; He awakens within 
us holy desires; He draws us up towards the 
spiritual realm; He inspires us to pray to the 
Father in a proper spirit. Every true prayer is 
born, not from a sense of need alone, but from 
the workings of the Spirit in the heart. 

In the Epistle of Jude the duty is enjoined of 
epryinpe in, the Holy Spirit” (y,, 20). Lo 
pray in the Spirit is to pray in the Spirit’s wis- 
dom, to pray in the Spirit’s power, to pray in the 
Spirit’s confidence in the Father. We pray in 


19> 


After Pentecost, What? 


the Spirit when the Spirit prays in us; and our 
groans and sighs spring from the Spirit moving 
in us, and not from the motions of the flesh. In 
the joint action implied the Spirit is our mouth- 
piece, and we are His mouthpiece; He identifies 
Himself with us, making the prayer which we 
present to God His own; we identify ourselves 
with Him, making the prayer which He inspires 
ourown. In whichever way we look at it, it 
is not we who pray, but the Spirit who prayeth 
for us and zz us. By putting Himself into our 
prayers He makes them acceptable to God. The 
prayer which He inspires and directs, the prayer 
which He takes up and prays over again as His 
own, cannot fail of an answer. Something of 
this truth is expressed in the lines of the Moham- 
medan hymn: 


‘Oh, never think a prayer like this, like other prayers; for 

know 

It is not mortal man, but God, from whom these accents 
flow. 

Behold! God prays! the lowly saint stands deep abased 
the while, 

And God who gave the humbled mind upon his prayers 
will smile.” 


INDWELLING. 

The Spirit of the Father is “over all and 
through all and in all.” (Eph. iv. 6.) He is 
“over all” as the Life Transcendent, “dwell- 
ing in light unapproachable”; He is “through 
all” as the Life Pervasive—the flowing stream 


196 


Spiritual Operations. 


of divine energy; He is “in all” as the Life 
Immanent—a very present help in the indi- 
vidual consciousness. It is hardly correct to 
speak of the Holy Spirit as dwelling in nature; 
for indwelling implies fellowship, and fellow- 
ship can take place only between self-con- 
scious, intelligent beings. He pervades nature; 
He dwells in man. To man belongs the glory 
of having vital points of contact with God. The 
human and divine are not alien, but are essen- 
tially one; as witness their perfect union in Jesus 
Christ. Man has a capacity for God. He is 
God’s child, made in His image, made to enjoy 
His friendship; and when he fulfills the destiny 
of his nature, he is “atemple of the Holy Spirit,” 
“a habitation of God in the Spirit.” 

The end for which the Jewish temple was built 
was not realized until the shekinah entered it; 
and the end of creation is not reached until the 
true Shekinah, prefigured in the glory cloud 
which rested above the cherubim, fills the temple 
of humanity. But divine possession is not in 
itself the end sought. The possessed temple is 
put to holy uses. The body of humanity is 
‘lled with the Spirit that it may be enabled to 
fulfill its highest functions; the individual soul 
becomes the temple of God that he may be conse- 
crated to the service of God. Christians “as liv- 


107, 


After Pentecost, What? 


ing stones are built up a spiritual house, for a 
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.” 
Their spirit-possessed lives are devoted to the 
worship of God and the service of man. 

The ensoulment of the Spirit of God in the 
body of humanity is the deepest fact of man’s 
immortal nature. Below the line of the ordinary 
consciousness, in-those hidden depths of being to 
which the name of the Subliminal Consciousness 
has been given, the Holy Spirit abides. From 
Him rise those mysterious impulses which lift 
the soul into the life of God. An upward move- 
ment all men occasionally feel; but what a con- 
stant uplift out of weakness into strength, out of 
trouble into comfort, out of conflict into peace, is 
experienced by those who know the source of 
their help! To those in whom the glory of the 
Lord is revealed earth’s petty trials and priva- 
tions are as the small dust of the balance. (See 
Rom. viii. 18.) The soul to whom everything 
is transfigured in the light of the inward revela- 
tion of the glory of God, “becomes a walking 
tent of heavenly majesty,” and has the world be- 
neath his feet. He is not “a stately ruin, visible 
to every eye, bearing in the front the doleful in- 
scription, Here God once dwelt,”* but a restored 


temple, visible to every eye, bearing on its front 


*John Howe. 


198 


ee eee 


Spiritual Operations. 


the gladsome inscription, Here God now dwells. 

Alas, that in this day of spiritual privilege 
many Christians should be no less blind to the 
presence of the Holy Spirit within them than the 
ancient people of God were blind to the presence 
of their Messiah among them! To enjoy a clear 
and habitual assurance of the Spirit of God as 
personally and actively present in the hidden 
depths of his nature is the blessed prerogative of 
every Christian. He is not to wait for the pos- 
session of the Holy Spirit, but is to believe in 
the reality of it. The question, “Know ye 
not that your body is a sanctuary of the 
Holy Spirit who is in you?” (1 Cor. vi. 
19) ought to silence his doubt forever regard- 
ing His personal and permanent indwelling. 
In the consciousness of the Spirit in the heart 
he has more satisfactory evidence of the divine 
presence than had the ancient Jew in the appear- 
ance of the shekinah in the temple. For is not 
evidence that speaks to the soul better than that 
which speaks to the senses? 

In the inhabitation of the soul of man by the 
Spirit of God the climax of divine manifestation 
is reached. “Last in the eternal order of the 
Divine Being, proceeding from the Father and 
from the Son, the Holy Spirit is the first point 


of contact with God in the order of experience.”* 
*Canon Gore in ‘‘Lux Mundi,” p. 265. 


Age 


After Pentecost, What? 


His place in the progressive revelation of God is 
that of Consummator. He takes the self-mani- 
festation of God in the man Christ Jesus, and 
makes it a revelation of God in man. In the 
spiritual revelation of Christ He gives a new 
consciousness of God. By losing His person- 
ality in Christ He finds it; by revealing Christ 
to the soul He becomes personal to the soul. To 
His coming Jesus pointed as the means by which 
the mystery of His own immanence would be 
forever cleared away. “At that time ye shall 
know that Iam in My Father and ye in Me, and 
Tin you.” He assured His disciples that He 
would not leave them orphans in a forlorn world. 
In the Spirit’s coming He was to return to abide 
with them perennially, putting Himself under 
their burdens, touching their inmost springs of 
action, awakening within them spiritual aspira- 
tions, and bringing them into fellowship with 
the Father. The fullness of His presence and 
the conditions of its enjoyment are brought out 
in the promise: “If ye love Me, ye will keep 
My commandments; and I will pray the Father, 
and He shall give you another Comforter, that He 
may abide with (mefa) you forever; even the 
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, 
because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; 
but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with (fara) 
200 


Spiritual Operations. 


you, and shall be in (ez) you.” (John xiv. 15-17.)* 
The three prepositions here used have a deepen- 
ing import. When we love Christ and obey His 
word His Spirit adzdes with us in the sense that 
His presence is continuous; He dwells with us 
in the sense that He keeps beside us so that we 
may have fellowship with Him; He zs zz ws in 
the sense that He is domiciled in our hearts, so 
that, having Him living in us, weare freed from 
dependence upon outward things. 

It is not enough to say that the Spirit comes as 
a freshening force, reviving the living sense of 
the divine presence which man had lost; He 
comes to the heart of man bringing a new con- 
sciousness of God’s overshadowing presence by 
making known the presence of Christ in the soul. 
By the promise of His presence with them and 
within them, Christ upstayed the hearts of His 
disciples at first; by the assurance of His presence 
with them and within them, He now upstays their 
hearts. The assurance of His presence is the 
crowning blessing of the new dispensation. Hav- 
ing come, He waits for recognition; He wants 
the gracious purpose of His spiritual coming to 
be recognized, that He may be intelligently co- 
operated with as a practical power in every-day 
life. Of the things necessary to the realization of 


*See Bible Commentary, in loco. 


201 


After Pentecost, What? 


the highest Christian experience nothing can be 
put before the cultivation of the consciousness of 
the Lord’s indwelling Presence. 

STRIVING. 

The opposition of man to God is a dark back- 
ground upon which the nature of the Holy Spirit’s 
work in the heart stands out in bold relief. His 
influence, as that of spirit upon spirit, is suasive. 
He does not invade the soul, overpowering the 
will, and crushing out personal freedom by the 
exercise of absolute power. However power- 
fully He may move men, He deals with them in 
harmony with their moral natures, and leaves 
them free to accept or reject the blessings which 
He brings. In the natural world He speaks and 
it is done, He commands and it stands fast; but 
in the spiritual world He often speaks and it is 
not done, He commands and it does not stand 
fast. Alas, that the God-given power of freedom 
should be often used in repelling His advances, 
and in thwarting His gracious intent! At the 
hands of men the Holy Spirit receives the same 
kind of treatment that Christ Himself received 
when He came to earth on His mission of mercy. 

1. fle ts resisted. Stephen, in his address 
before the Jewish Council, makes this home 
thrust: “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in 
heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy 

202 


Spiritual Operations. 


Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye.” (Acts vil. 
51.) He here charges the Jews with resisting 
the Holy Spirit in rejecting the gospel message 
delivered by him as the Spirit’s spokesman. In 
their resistance of the Spirit the striving of the 
Spirit is implied; in their continued resistance 
of the Spirit the continued striving of the Spirit 
is implied. The Spirit is always bringing the 
utmost pressure possible to bear upon men, try- 
ing to get them to surrender themselves to Christ 
their King. But with strange perversity they 
turn a deaf ear to His passionate appeals. “He 
speaketh once, yea twice, but men perceive it 
not.” Why does He not compel them to listen 
and obey? Why does He not overpower their 
resisting wills? Because enforced obedience 
would be no obedience at all. The mechanical 
service of a million automatons would have no 
moral value whatsoever. To speak of making 
men willing is as absurd as to speak of forcing 
them to become volunteers. God treats with re- 
spect the free nature which He has sovereignly 
bestowed upon His creature man. To secure 
moral ends He makes use of moral means, ply- 
ing man with reasons addressed to his intelli- 
gence, and with motives applied to his heart. re 
strives with him in the same tender, suasive way 
in which a parent strives with a child, endeavor- 
203 


After Pentecost, What? 


ing to stop him in his mad career of sin and 
shame. The only reason why any man, to whom 
the gospel message has come, remains in impeni- 
tence, is that he is always resisting the Spirit’s 
influence. When the light of heaven shines upon 
him, instead of opening to it, as the flower opens 
to the sun, he closes himself tightly against it. 
When the rain of heaven falls upon him, instead 
of allowing it to soak in that it may cover his soul 
with verdure, like the unyielding rock he sheds 
it off. Refusing—with an obstinacy and obduracy 
which baffle heaven—to give way to the Spirit’s 
striving, he cuts himself off from heaven’s help 
and perishes in his pride. 

27Utle 1s grieved. “Grieve not the @iiam 
Spirit of God” (Eph. iv. 30), is of all appeals 
addressed to erring man the most _ pathetic. 
The Spirit is grieved when His goodness is dis- 
trusted, and when His striving is resisted. God 
said of the children of Israel that “they rebelled 
and vexed His holy spirit.” (Isa. Ixiii. 10.) 
Their carelessness gave Himpain. After all He 
had done for them He expected better things at 
their hands. And be it noted that it is to His spir- 
itual Israel that the admonition “Grieve not the 
Holy Spirit” is addressed. Great is the Spirit’s 
grief when any soul slights His home-welcome, 
and remains in the far country of spiritual 

204 


ae 


Spiritual Operations. 


estrangement; but greater is His grief when one 
in whom He dwells resists all His efforts to raise 
him up into a higher life, and in spite of his in- 
ward protests allows himself to be buried in 
worldliness, or to indulge in things that are 
wrong. The backsliding Christian is repre- 
sented as “ doing despite unto the Spirit of grace.” 
(Heb. x. 29.) Hetreats the gracious Spirit with 
contumely. By requiting with indifference His 
unremitting love he inflicts upon Him crucifixion 
of heart. His defection is not asin of ignor- 
ance, but of light. He knows better than he 
does. By his offense the Spirit is wounded in 
the house of His friends. Who can wound the 
parental heart as deeply as a child? and who can 
hurt the heart of the Blessed Spirit as deeply as 
one who has made to Him an open declaration of 
love? 

But however much the Holy Spirit may be 
grieved, He cannot be grieved away. Grief isa 
form of love, and love clings. Nothing can 
separate it from its object. Over the most way- 
ward soul that wrings His heart with agony the 
loving Spirit exclaims, “ How shall I give thee 
up?”* His interest is abiding. Were He with- 
holding anything needful for the better life of a 


single soul, His grief would be meaningless. He 


EE a eee ene RE eee Sh 
*For a fuller discussion of this subject see the Author’s ‘‘Unto the 
Uttermost,’’ Fords, Howard & Hulbert, N. Y. 


205 


After Pentecost, What? 


sheds no unavailing tears over the inevitable. 
While sorrowing for what might have been, He 
sorrows in hope for what may yet be. “Grieve 
not the Holy Spirit,” means grieve Him no longer. 
Sorrow enough, trouble enough,heartache enough 
you have already cost Him;henceforth give Him 
joy for His sorrow by yielding to His drawing, 
as He seeks to lead you into a life of separation 
from the world and of consecration to Christ and 
to the things of His kingdom. 

3. Hes quenched. His light within the soul 
is put out. This is easily done. It is done by 
indulging in habitual sin, by neglecting the means 
of grace, and by attempting to live a life of spirit- 
ualindependence. The warning words, “ Quench 
not the Spirit” (1 Thess. v. 15), refer specially, 
however, to the quenching of the operations of 
the Spirit which are given for edifying. These 
operations are quenched when the holy emotions 
which He excites are repressed, and the holy pur- 
poses which He awakens are stifled. There is 
a natural shrinking from going all the way that 
the Spirit may take us. We fear to commit our- 
selves unreservedly into His hands; we fear to 
launch out into the deep at His command; we 
fear to trust ourselves to His holy impulses; we 
fear lest the fire which He has kindled in our hearts 
should burn too fiercely, and we throw upon it 

200 


Spiritual Operations. 


the green log of worldly prudence to keep it 
down. Bishop Ellicott makes this fear of undue 
ardor the prominent thought in his exposition of 
this text. He says, “The Eternal Spirit is rep- 
resented as a fire which it is regarded as possible 
to extinguish by a studied repression and disre- 
gard of its manifestations, arising from an erro- 
neous perception and a mistaken dread of enthusi- 
asm.” The exhortation, “ Quench not the Spirit,” 
may therefore be translated into, Be not afraid of 
enthusiasm; do not smother up the fire of holy 
love; cherish every good thought and purpose 
which is the evidence of the Spirit’s inworking. 
“Stir up the gift that is in you,” as you would 
stir up a fire; give it air, supply it with fuel, 
that it may burn in a pure, white flame; let it be 
a sacredly tended altar-fire which shall never be 
suffered to go out. 

4. Hets blasphemed. The blasphemy against 
the Holy Spirit is the climax of iniquity. It is 
designated “the sin against the Holy Spirit.” 
A contrast is drawn between sin against the Son 
of Man, and sin committed against the Holy 
Spirit. The former may be passed over, the lat- 
ter never. “Every sin and blasphemy shall be 
forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the 
Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever 
shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall 

207 


After Pentecost, What? 


be forgiven him ; but whosoever shall speak against 
the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this age nor in that which is to come. 
(Matt. xii. 31, 32.) The reason why this sin is 
fraught with fatal consequence is that it is a sin 
against the last and highest manifestation of God’s 
truth, and saving power. After the Holy Spirit 
there is nothing. He is the final outgoing of God 
for the recovery of thelost. To sinagainst Him 
is to resist divine moral power in its highest pos- 
sible form. Men may reject the historical Christ 
without coming into condemnation, for they may 
reject Him in ignorance; but they cannot reject 
the inward voice and light of the Holy Spirit 
without coming into condemnation, for that is 
always asin of enlightened and defiant opposi- 
tion, and implies an attitude of soul that precludes 
forgiveness. It is not a specific act which, when 
once committed, shuts men out forever from God’s 
pardoning mercy, but a condition of heart which, 
while tt lasts, makes pardon impossible. The 
one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, that 
is, the one who continues to blaspheme against 
the Holy Spirit, has no forgiveness in any age; 
for he places himself outside the circle within 
which divine mercy operates. He stills the in- 
ward voice of the Divine Monitor, and goes on 
to death unchecked; he quenches the inward light 
208 


Spiritual Operations. 


of heaven, without which the way of life cannot 
be found, and he stumbles on in the blackness of 
darkness like one in a dark mine who has thrown 
away historch. He is not abandoned of God, he 
abandons God. He is not driven from the divine 
presence with the flaming seal of endless doom 
upon his brow, to wander through the shades of 
death, an unshriven soul. Deliberately, willfully, 
and persistently turning his back upon the light, 
he goes away into the outer darkness a self-ex- 
iled, self-ruined soul. Not too strongly does 
Lange put it, when he says: “ Blasphemously 
to rebel, in opposition to one’s better knowledge 
and conscience, against the manifestation and in- 
fluence of the Holy Spirit is to commit moral 
suicide.” It is wrong, however, to speak of this 
sin as “the unpardonable sin.” No sin is unpar- 
donable. All that is affirmed of it is that it is an 
unpardoned sin; and it is now and must forever 
be an unpardoned sin, not because God in His 
infinite mercy is unwilling to pardon it, but 
simply because those who commit it are in an un- 
pardonable condition. For the impenitent there 
is pardon nowhere and at no time, but for the 
penitent there is pardon everywhere and at all 
times. 


209 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE IMPARTATION OF SPIRITUAL POWER. 


‘‘But when he came the second time, 
He came with power and love ; 
Softer than gale at morning prime 
Hovered the Holy Dove. 
The fires that rushed from Sinai down 
In trembling torrents dread, 
Now gently light, a golden crown 
On every sainted head.” 
KEBLE. 
Tue age of the Spirit is the age of spiritual 

power, and the baptism of the Spirit by which 
that power is conferred is one of its most out- 
standing features. When John the Baptist was 
instructed of Heaven to watch for the coming 
Messiah, he was told that the one unmistakable 
sign by which He would be recognized was His 
receiving and giving the baptism of the Holy 
Spirit. “Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the 
Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, the 
same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.” 
(John i. 33.) Inheralding the coming of Christ, 
John draws a contrast between the water baptism 
which he administered and. the spiritual baptism 
which Christ was to administer, the one being 
merely the shadow of which the other is the sub- 
stance. “I baptized with water,” he says, “but 


210 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 
(Mark i. 8.) John was the living link between 
two dispensations. He closed the old, and in- 
troduced the new. He came “in the spirit and 
power of Elijah,” being the medium through 
whom the spirits of the prophets, swan-like, sang 
their dying song. He came also as the harbin- 
ger of a spring time of spiritual life and power. 
He pointed to the newly opened door through 
which others were to enter. Up to his time there 
was no one that towered above him,“ yet he that is 
but little in the kingdom of God is greater than 
he”; not because he is personally greater, but be- 
cause he comes to his mission clothed in the spirit 
and power of the Holy Spirit. 

Immediately before His departure, the risen 
Lord commanded His disciples to tarry in Jeru- 
salem for the promise of the Father, saying, “ Ye 
shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many 
days hence.” (Acts i. 5.) The practical effect 
of the Spirit’s baptism He describes in the words, 
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit 
is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto 
Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and 
Samaria,and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” 
(Acts i. S.) At the first blush, it is difficult to 
discover any adequate reason why the disciples 
should have been told to tarry before beginning 

Pay 


After Pentecost, What? 


their urgent work. Were they not already in 
possession of all the facts which constitute the 
gospel message? Yes, but they were not yet in 
possession of the power necessary to make their 
message effective. They needed powder behind 
the ball to drive it home. Without the enduement 
of power from on high their testimony would fail 
of its end. As_the prime condition of success 
they were torely, not upon natural gifts, nor upon 
co-operation with world-forces, nor upon organ- 
ization or machinery, but upon “the Holy Spirit 
sent down from heaven.” They were to be the 
mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit, making His 
breath articulate. Their preaching was not to 
be “in word only”—however vehemently uttered 
—-but “in demonstration of the Spirit,” that is, 
in demonstration borne by the Spirit, “and in 
power.” In accounting for their triumphs they 
were to be able to say, “ Our gospel came not unto 
you in word only, but also in power, and in the 
Holy Spirit, and in much assurance.” It was 
not merely that they were fired with a holy en- 
thusiasm; they were filled with a divine energy. 
And so completely was the human merged into 
the divine that it could be said of them, “ It is not 
ye that speak, but the Spirit of the Father that 
speaketh in you.” (Matt.x. 20.) For the effective 
preaching of the gospel, there is nothing that is 
212 


Ti rt. 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


indispensable but the Holy Spirit. His power 
is the spiritual dynamic or driving force, by 
which all spiritual results are accomplished. With- 
out it learning and eloquence are vain. It is 
therefore wise and profitable to tarry for it. 
Those who hasten to the work without it come 
back empty-handed. One day’s work after the 
baptism of power has more spiritual value than 
all the years of ceaseless toil that have gone before 
it. 

Here, then, we find three things which require 
to be considered in their relation to one another; 
the work to be done, the instrument to be em- 
ployed, and the power upon which we are to 
depend. The work to be done is the subjugating 
of the world to Christ, and the establishing of 
His kingdom on the earth; the instrument to be 
employed is the gospel; the power upon which 
we are to depend is the Holy Spirit. From the 
work before them, Christians, conscious of their 
feebleness, might well shrink did they not believe 
that behind them, above them, and within them 
is a power amply adequate to its accomplishment 
—a power capable of lifting them above them- 
selves, and of making them equal to any emer- 
gency, and sufficient to every demand. In words 
which have in them a suggestion of finality, 
Christ asserts the absoluteness of the power which 

213 


After Pentecost, What? 


He delegates to His people. “All power” (or 
authority), He says, “hath been given unto Me, 
in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and 
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them 
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19.) 
These words Professor A. B. Bruce paraphrases 
thus: “I have all power in heaven, and jurisdic- 
tion over all the earth; go ye therefore into all 
the world, making disciples of all the nations, 
nothing doubting that all spiritual influences, and 
all providential agencies will be subservient to 
the great errand upon which I send you.”* All 
that Christ has received He gives unto His people, 
that with infinite resources at their command 
they may be able to turn to practical account all 
conditions and events, and make all earthly in- 
fluences contribute to the working out of the 
world’s redemption. He has nothing more to 
add and they have nothing more to look for. 
Heaven’s ultimate has been reached; heaven’s 
best has been bestowed. Nothing that is really 
needed to qualify His people for the task put into 
their hands, is withheld. All that He has is 
theirs; theirs for the taking ; theirs for the using. 
Why, then, should any one remain weak? Why 
should any one flinch before difficulties or be 


tk ee ee ty ee oe 
*The Training of the Twelve,” p. 534. 


214 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


shadowed by the fear of failure? Is not the great- 
ness of the gift of power a sufficient reason why 
the Lord’s servant should not fail nor be discour- 
aged till judgment be set in the earth, and the 
isles shall wait for the law of the world’s true 
king? 

When, on the day of Pentecost, the coveted 
power was received, the disciples were re-made. 
Those who had quailed before the world’s scorn 
became brave as lions; pigmies became giants; 
cowards became heroes; deserters became leaders ; 
waverers became martyrs. Those who were 
weak in themselves became “strong in the Lord 
and in the power of His might;” ordinary Chris- 
tians, “strengthened with might through His 
Spirit in the inward man,” became “mighty in 
word and deed ;” Christians dumb through dull- 
ness, “baptized with the Holy Spirit and with 
fire,” felt within them “a spirit of burning,” and 
became fire-tongued evangelists; those who had 
never quickened in others a single pulse-beat of 
noble impulse became aggressive reformers who 
roused the slumbering consciences of men, and 
turned the world upside down. But, it may be 
said, all this took place ina time long gone by. 
What of the present? Is the power which was 
given to the disciples at Pentecost given to the 
disciples of to-day? Was Pentecost a freshet or 

oe 


After Pentecost, What? 


the opening of a perennial fountain? Did the 
great outbreaking and outflowing of pent up 
power which then took place exhaust the energy 
- of the Spirit? Has the rushing, mighty wind 
with which the coming of the Spirit was accom- 
panied no longer any significance; or is it still a 
symbol of that power which yet unspent sweeps 
through the centuries, bringing to naught the 
devices of men, and bringing to sure fulfillment 
the purposes of God? 

In Ezekiel’s vision of the rising river whose 
waters fertilize the waste places of the world, 
the answer to these questions is prophetically 
anticipated. In that sublime vision the develop- 
ment of the Spirit’s power, if not distinctly fore- 
shadowed, is at least graphically illustrated. The 
waters which issue from the threshold of the tem- 
ple, hard by the altar of sacrifice, although small 
at first, gradually increase in volume and power. 
The prophet and his guide follow the stream a 
thousand cubits, cross it, and find it ankle-deep; 
they walk along the banks a thousand cubits more, 
wade in, and find it knee-deep; they ferd it the 
third time when they have gone a thousand cubits 
farther, and find it up to the loins; they walk on 
still another thousand cubits and cannot recross 
it, for the waters have risen, and have become 
large enough to swim in. Thus it is that the 


216 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


river of divine power flows adown the ages, 
gradually increasing from a tiny stream which 
children at play can dam up, to a majestic river 
overflowing its banks, and sweeping everything 
before it in its resistless might. At what point 
are the waters now? Did they long ago reach 
their highest mark and are they now subsiding? 
No! They are now at full flood. Nor do they 
show any sign of abatement. From the first they 
have flowed on with undiminished power, and 
shall continue so to flow until by their life-giving 
influence every Dead Sea has been healed, and 
every desert place reclaimed and made to blossom 
as the rose. 

In this new epoch, spiritual power is the abid- 
ing possession of the church. Some measure of 
it all Christians possess in virtue of the essential 
saving baptism of the Spirit by which they are 
united to the spiritual body of Christ. With 
many the measure received and used is well-nigh 
infinitesimal. They have “a little strength,” 
enough to keep them from denying Christ’s 
name, but not enough to make them mighty in 
witnessing for Him. Others have merely “ 
residue of the Spirit” (Mal. ii. 15), the dregs of a 


former abundance, the mouldy manna of yester- 


a 


day’s gathering. They live upon a memory of a 
past experience; and hence their testimony for 
217 


After Pentecost, What? 


Christ is dim and feeble. To make their witness- 
bearing clear and bright, what is needed? A new 
effusion of the Spirit? No; buta fuller infilling of 
the Spirit. A new gift of power? No; buta new 
baptism of power. Every life which is powerful 
in its testimony for Christ is a life unto which 
the Spirit has come with power. Every church 
which has been converted from a company of 
mutes into a witnessing body is a church which 
has received the Spirit in Pentecostal fullness. 
Every Christian who unites himself completely 
with the Spirit of power ceases to be a spiritual 
nonentity. The possibilities of his life are to be 
measured, not by what he himself can do, but by 
what the Spirit of God can do in him, and by 
him. Upborne upon the tide of divine power, 
he is lifted up to spiritual heights by himself for- 
ever unattainable. The power of the Highest 
rests upon him. He is clothed with power as a 
garment. Through the Spirit of God immanent in 
his soul his enfeebled nature is so energized that 
all his weakness is swallowed up in strength, 
and he becomes a medium through whom mighty 
works are wrought. Horace Bushnell speaks 
of Cromwell as “a battle-axe swung by the Lord 
Almighty.” Every one empowered of the Spirit 
is the instrument of the Almighty to execute His 
will. To him is the promise given, “Behold, I 
218 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


will make thee a new threshing instrument hav- 
ing teeth; thou shalt thresh the mountains and 
beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. 
Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry 
them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them ; 
and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, thou shalt glory 
in the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa. xli. 15, 16.) 
In looking for signs of the Spirit’s baptism 
grievous mistakes are often made. A spectacular 
religious experience is counted higher than the 
commonplace experience of God’s hidden ones 
who live lives of true heroism in the midst of 
the most untoward surroundings. It is scarcely 
possible to over-emphasize the truth that the 
Spirit’s baptism is not something apart from 
life’s ordinary experiences, but isa thing for 
daily use in this work-a-day world. It is given 
to make us calm and patient under life’s trials, 
to make us robust and stalwart for life’s enter- 
prises. It is given to quicken our activity, 
to fortify our courage, to sustain our hopes, 
to hold us up to our highest ideals, and enable 
us to do the best of which we are capable. 
As a rule it comes in a holy hush rather than 
in violent shocks of emotion, in deliberate pur- 
pose of deeper consecration rather than in rap- 
ture delicious or ecstasy divine; it 1s exhibited 


in quietness rather than in noise, in stability 


219 


After Pentecost, What? 


rather than in brilliancy, in stout bearing of 
burdens rather than in spasms, in patient con- 
tinuance in well-doing rather than in occa- 
sional spurts of religious industry. The man upon 
whom the power of the Spirit rests will concen- 
trate His energies to the attainment of definite 
ends. He will gather the scattered rays of influ- 
ence in His life into one burning focus, saying, 
“This one thing Ido.” With singleness of eye 
and aim He will push straight to the mark. His 
life will not be like a whirlwind of flame, or like 
a meteor blazing across the heavens, but like the 
sun pursuing his appointed course from day to 
day. His witness-bearing will not be confined 
to special occasions, but will cover his entire life; 
it will not consist merely or mainly in the per- 
formance of a few grand and heroic deeds which 
fill the world with wonder, but in steady plod- 
ding along the dusty way of uneventful duty. The 
Spirit’s baptism will inspire the bread-winner 
with courage; the mother with patience of hope; 
the confirmed invalid with resignation; the nurse 
with sympathy and gentleness; the man of affairs 
with resourcefulness; the servant of the public 
with fidelity to trust. And what more convincing 
evidence of the inworking of the Spirit’s power 
can be found than a deep spiritual purpose worked 
out naturally and unobtrusively in a simple, well 


balanced, and useful life? 
220 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


Because of the dim and nebulous views which 
obtain concerning the Holy Spirit, many who are 
looking and longing for His baptism expect it to 
come upon them in some magical way as an 
afflatus,.a galvanic shock, an electric thrill, an 
enswathement in a subtle ether or fire mist, or 
as a tide of liquid fire sweeping over the soul. 
This conception of things has been strengthened 
by the testimonies of eminent saints who have 
mistaken the physical excitement accompanying 
some great spiritual change in their lives, for 
the change itself. To cite one case from among 
many-——President Finney, describing a distinct 
and definite change which took place in his life, 
after conversion, says, “The Holy Spirit de- 
scended upon me in a manner that seemed to go 
through me, body and soul. I could feel the im- 
pression like a wave of electricity going through 
and through me. Indeed, it seemed to come in 
waves and waves of liquid love, for I could ex- 
press it no other way. It seemed like the very 
breath of God. Ican recollect distinctly that it 
seemed to fan me like immense wings.”* Can 
there be the slightest doubt that these sensations, 
so dramatically described, were purely physical, 
and were the natural effect of violent emotion 
upon the highly strung and overwrought nerves 

*'‘Memoirs of Rev. Chas. G. Finney,” p. 20, 
221 


After Pentecost, What? 


of a strong and sensitive nature? They could 
have been experienced only by one possessing a 
volcanictemperament. They possessed no spirit- 
ual quality whatever. Certainly they can not be 
included in the list of the fruits of the Spirit given 
by St. Paul; being different in nature and be- 
longing to a different category. The two facts 
of spiritual significance which lay behind them 
were the complete submission of the soul to God 
and its possession by the Spirit; but these facts 
were in no way dependent upon them, and might 
have existed had they been absent. 

If any one desires the baptism of the Spirit’s 
power, how is it to be got? By asking for it. 
The Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask Him; not to them who agonize, 
but to them who ask, and He gives in increased 
measure to them who ask for more. Spiritual 
power is not produced by the friction of self-ex- 
citation; no prolonged exercises are required to 
obtain it. It comes by divine communication, 
and it comes as soon as it is asked. When the 
soul’s mouth is opened wide, God fills it. Do 
not the disciples of to-day require to wait in 
prayer for the promised power, as the early dis- 
ciples did at Pentecost? Yes; but with this differ- 
ence; the early disciples waited to obtain what had 
not yet been given; we wait to receive what has 


222 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


been given; they waited for the dawning of the 
new dispensation ; we, living in that dispensation, 
wait for the fullness of the blessing which it 
brings. And seeing that God Himself is waiting 
to impart what we are so anxious to receive, the 
time of waiting need not be long. The idea of 
man waiting upon God must not overshadow the 
equally important idea of God waiting upon man. 
It is true that the disciples waited ten days upon 
God at Pentecost, but it is equally true that God 
waited tendays uponthem. The preparation re- 
quired was in them, not in Him; they did not 
wait until God was ready, God waited until they 
were ready. The “incubation period,” as Pro- 
fessor Bruce calls the ten days’ waiting, was a 
period of spiritual quickening and enlargement 
and preparation. The attitude of God towards 
His people is still unchanged. “The Lord waits 
that He may be gracious.” He waits to endow 
the feeblest saint with all the power that he is 
prepared to receive. What He has given is but 
the earnest of the greater things which He stands 
ready to give. Thehope is cherished that a new 
era of spiritual power is about to break upon us. 
It cannot come too soon; and come it will, just as 
soon as the church, appreciating the glorious pos- 
sibilities of the present dispensation, begins to 
draw upon Heaven’s reserved resources. Of 
223 


After Pentecost, What? 


these resources there is no limit; and from them 
God gives out as long as man will take. He 
never stops giving until man stops asking. 

Is it any wonder that the life of the church is 
fitful, that her love languishes, that her zeal de- 
clines, and that her power decays when she per- 
sists in waiting for God instead of waiting wpon 
God? Her highest hope has come to be that she 
might be mercifully blest with an occasional visi- 
tation of the Holy Spirit, when what is needed 
to raise her out of her lethargy and weakness, and 
spiritualize all her activities, is not a movement 
of the Holy Spirit towards her, but a movement 
on her part towards the Spirit; not the downcom- 
ing, but the incoming of the Spirit; not a fresh 
outpouring, but many a fresh inpouring of the 
Spirit. Christians are not to pray for the advent 
of the Spirit; they are to pray that their eyes 
may be opened to the glory of His presence; 
they are not to pray for His descent, but for His 
inhabitation; they are not to agonize to bring 
Him near, they are to recognize His nearness; 
they are not to seek Him in the heavens, but in 
their hearts; they are not to set themselves to ob- 
tain His power as a gift ungranted, they are to 
receive in larger abundance the gift of power al- 
ready given; they are not to expend their labor 
in endeavoring to induce the Lord to make over 

224 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


to them a new inheritance, they are to fulfill the 
conditions necessary to immediate entrance upon, 
and complete possession of the wonderful inherit- 
ance which is already theirs. The trouble about ob- 
taining increased spiritual power is not with the 
Spirit, but with ourselves. What we need is in- 
creased power of spiritual appropriation. The 
Spirit is as really with us as Christ was with His 
disciples during His incarnate state. As the 
mighty power which moves through all things, 
and by which all things are moved, He is ever at 
work in our behalf; and what we have to do is 
to bring ourselves into connection with Him, and 
keep in connection with Him. 

To illustrate: A trolley car has come to a sud- 
den stop. The motorman keeps turning the lever, 
but to no avail. “What is the matter?” he is 
asked. “The power is off,” is the reply, “and I 
suppose there is nothing for it but to wait until 
the current is turned on again.” Things look 
serious. The power-house is in the city, several 
miles distant. Perhaps the engine has broken 
down. The passengers are growing impatient, 
and are preparing to walk,when from acar which 
goes whizzing past in the opposite direction comes 
the mirthful shout, “Your pole is off!” There 
had really been no necessity for waiting; the cur- 
rent had not been turned off; the engine had not 

225 


After Pentecost, What? 


broken down;  -all the trouble lay in the fact that 
the connection had been broken. The pole is 
replaced, and instantly the car resumes its course. 
Here we have a picture of achurch. It is mak- 
ing no progress; its work is ata stand-still; it is 
waiting for power. The trouble is not that the 
power is off; the pole ts off. (The power of God, 
which came down from heaven at Pentecost, is 
in constant operation, but ofttimes our connection 
with it is broken. What must be done then is to 
restore the connection with the power that is ever 
working for salvation. 

The Holy Spirit will be only too glad to give 
any one all the power he is prepared to use. He 
can have no object in keeping it back for a 
single moment. Into the open heart He will 
enter as air rushes in by the open door, or as 
light enters by the open window. Much wres- 
tling with our stubborn hearts, to bring them into 
a state of receptivity, may be required, but no 
wrestling with the Holy Spirit to overcome His 
unwillingness, no frantic effort to wring a reluc- 
tant blessing from His hand, is ever required. 
The simple, single condition requisite for the en- 
joyment of His presence and power is that ex- 
pressed in the words, “Receive ye the Holy 
Spirit.” Receive what heaven has already pro- 
vided and placed within your reach; claim as 


226 


The Impartation of Spiritual Power. 


your own the rich heritage that is really yours; 
take in all that God has given out; give the Spirit 
more of yourself, and He will give you more of 
Himself; give Him more heart-room and He 
will give you more of His company; give Him 
more faith and He will give you more power; 
throw open to Him the door of your spirit- 
home, and He will come in, filling every 
chamber with the splendor of His presence, 
making the whole life luminous in its testi- 
mony for truth and righteousness. Get up above 
the cloud-line of doubt, of darkness and of 
despair, into the mount of spiritual vision; live 
in the sunshine of the divine presence until it 
saturate your entire spiritual being; inbreathe 
the pure air of the celestial sphere until every 
blood-drop of the soul tingles with new life; press 
on through the ever narrowing circles of the 
phenomenal that close the spirit in, until you 
stand at the living center of universal power; and 
vibrant to the Spirit’s slightest touch, the healing 
power that flowed in fullness from the Christ 
shall go out of you to every suffering soul who 
may but touch the hem of your garment. 


224 


CHARTERS SLES 


THE PRODUCTION OF SPIRITUAL WORKS. 


‘It is plain that if Christ be dead He could not be expel- 

ling demons and destroying idols.” 
ATHANASIUS. 

TueE Holy Spirit descended in power at Pente- 
cost that He might continue the work of Christ 
in the world. The importance of His work lies 
in this, that it joins on to the work of Christ, 
taking that work up at the point where Christ 
left it off, and not merely carrying it on, but car- 
rying it forward to a new stage of development. 
Death, which ends the work of man, did not even 
interrupt the work of Christ. His activity, in- 
stead of ending with His earthly life, has been 
continued and increased in the activity of the 
Holy Spirit. He died in weakness, like other 
men, but He rose again in mighty power to work 
in the world in anew and enlarged way. His 
productive power has been increased rather than 
diminished. “ The things which He began both to 
do and to teach, until the time that He was taken 
up” (Acts. i. 2), have, since the time that He was 
taken up, been carried forward by His Representa- 
tive. The record of the things which He has done 
and taught, through the Spirit, since His ascen- 

228 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


sion, constitutes all that is valuable in the history of 
the church, from the first chapter of “The Acts 
of the Apostles,” down to the account of the latest 
missionary triumph, or the latest development of 
truth. The work that He is now doing through 
the Spirit is the same in kind as the work that 
filled His hands when He walked upon the earth. 

No sharp line of distinction is ever drawn in 
Scripture between the work of Christ and the 
work of the Spirit. The two coalesce. The dec- 
laration of Jesus that He cast out demons by 
“the finger of God” (Luke xi. 20) is interpreted 
by Augustine to mean that He cast them out 
by the power of the Spirit. The explanation 
given by Peter of the wonders wrought on 
the day of Pentecost was that Jesus, “being 
by the right hand of God exalted, and having re- 
ceived the promise of the Holy Spirit, hath poured 
out this which ye see and hear.” (Acts ii. 32.) 
The Spirit, as Christ’s ascension gift, was ina 
sense a larger gift of Himself. Gift and giver 
are one. When the Spirit was given, Christ was 
given. And when the Spirit is now given, 
Christ is given; when the Spirit is now present, 
Christ is present; when the Spirit now works, 
Christ works. By the Spirit’s exhaustless en- 
ergy and ceaseless activity Christ is making Him- 
self felt in the whole of human life for the actual- 

229 


After Pentecost, What? 


izing of redemption. When it is said of the early 
disciples that they went forth preaching the gos- 
pel, “the Lord working with them,” what is evi- 
dently meant is that the Lord, to make their 
message effective, joined forces with them by His 
Spirit; when it is said that “the Lord added to 
the church daily such as were being saved,” what 
is evidently meant is that those in whom the 
process of salvation had begun were led at once 
by the Spirit into the fellowship of the church; 
when it is said that “miracles were wrought by 
the hands of the apostles in the name of Christ,” 
what is evidently meant is that miracles were 
wrought in His name by the power of the Spirit; 
when it is said that from within the veil the risen 
Christ gave personal direction to the labors of 
His servants, what is evidently meant is, that al- 
though out of sight, by the Spirit He kept His 
hand upon them and controlled their movements. 
All the outgoings and ongoings of the Spirit’s 
redemptive energy furnish proof that Christ has 
returned in power and that He is now living and 
working in the world. 

As the Executive of Christ the Spirit is work- 
ing tirelessly for the regeneration of a ruined 
world. In His constant activity the inner and 
eternal life of Christ is manifested. A thought- 
ful boy asked his mother, “What does the Holy 

230 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


Spirit get to doin the world; what is good enough 
to occupy Him?” The work which He finds 
worthy of His best thought, the work upon which 
His interest is centered and His effort expended, 
is the work in which Christ wore Himself out, the 
work for which He gave Himself in sacrifice 
upon the cross. To that work all His energies 
are given; into it He throws Himself with an 
abandon born of infinite love. 

The relation of the Spirit’s work to the estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of Christ upon the earth 
is oftentimes completely overlooked. The affir- 
mation is made and reiterated that Christ’s king- 
dom is built up upon the Sermon on the Mount; 
but the distinction is not always observed between 
what the kingdom is built up zfoz, and what it 
is built up dy. It is indeed built up upon the 
ethical principles enunciated in the Sermon on the 
Mount, but it is built up by the power of the 
Holy Spirit. Christianity is something more 
than a system of ethics; it is a thing of life and 
power. It not only shows men what is right, 
but also empowers them to do it. The Spirit is 
the spiritual dynamic which gives to the ethical 
teaching of Jesus practical effect. Apart from 
the Spirit’s working, Jesus would be simply a 
teacher of morals, and nota Savior; and His gos- 
pel, instead of being the power of God unto sal- 

231 


After Pentecost, What? 


vation, would be simply the declaration of correct 
ethical principles. Take out of Christianity the 
idea of the risen, ascended, ever-living, ever- 
working Christ now present in the world in the 
Spirit, and it is shorn of its power. In the ac- 
tivity of Christ in the present, the emphasis 
ought to be placed upon what He is doing rather 
than upon what He is teaching, that those who 
acknowledge Him to be a growing light may also 
acknowledge Him to be a growing power. We 
sometimes forget that Christ came not only to 
teach something, but to do something; that He 
came not only to complete a revelation, but to ac- 
complish a work. His work is not yet done. So 
long as there is one soul exiled from the Father’s 
house, or one earthly principality or power un- 
subordinated to the rule of God, the work that 
He is now carrying on by the Holy Spirit will 
be continued. The Spirit’s operations will cease 
when the work of human redemption has been 
completed, and not before. 

The power from on high by which the king- 
dom of Christ is established is mediated to the 
world by men. It is not put into organizations, 
but into souls. It is not an abstraction, but an 
incarnation. It is power personalized. Those 
who receive the Spirit are not simply clothed 
with the Spirit; the Spirit clothes Himself with 

232 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


them. He lives and acts through them. The 
power which they transmit from Him to the 
world is not mechanical, but vital. It is of the 
nature of personal influence. For them to work 
is for the Holy Spirit to work; for them to pour 
out their lives in holy service is for the Holy 
Spirit to be poured out. When the Spirit has a 
work to do, He needs men to do it. What could 
He have done at Pentecost without a Peter to 
represent Him, and to speak for Him? Unless 
He can find a consecrated personality through 
which to work, His hands are tied. In the early 
days of Christianity religion was intensely indi- 
vidualistic. It lived in human hearts before it 
was embodied in human organizations. It was 
inwrought into the experience of individual saints 
before it was crystallized into a system. It was 
inspirational before it was institutional. Organ- 
ization was then at its minimum and individual 
action at its maximum. ‘The individual was not 
lost in the organization, as he now too often is. 
“The Acts of the Apostles,” which is merely a 
book of examples, is the record of individual 
work. When the Spirit fell upon the disciples, 
instead of being formed into a solid phalanx, they 
were “scattered abroad.” As soon as Jesus went 
up they went forth. No longer did they wait in 
prayer. Working took the place of waiting. 


233 


After Pentecost, What? 


Each one engaged in the work of the Lord in 
the power that was given to him. In every 
breast a new sense of responsibility was born. 
Just as it is when the home circle is broken 
up, and each child goes forth to form a new 
center which shall help to renew and enlarge 
the world’s life, so when Jesus was taken up 
each of His disciples endeavored to become a 
new center of influence in the enlargement of 
the kingdom. The spiritual wealth held by His 
followers in trust was not allowed to become 
congested, but was freely and generously dis- 
tributed. They were the Spirit’s almoners. 
They were His intelligent agents, and not His 
unconscious instruments. ‘Their individuality 
was respected, and was neither crushed out nor 
overborne. What they did they did not as autom- 
atons, but as men. This free and personal 
service the Spirit always seeks. He is ready to 
work through any individual who is willing to 
be used by Him. He does not wait for organi- 
zation, He waits for personal willingness. He 
does not scorn the efforts of the humblest Christian 
who tries to help the kingdom on. When the best 
offering that love can bring is “a pair of turtle 
doves” it is just as acceptable as a hecatomb of 
oxen. The very purpose for which He imparts 
power is that it may produce a willingness to 


234 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


work. The Lord’s people “offer themselves 
willingly in the day of His power.” (Ps. cx. 3.) 
Receiving the baptism of power, they become 
willing-hearted workers for Christ. Every 
particle of power which they receive is em- 
ployed in reproducing the works of Christ. 
What is given as power is given back as service. 
None of it is expended in making the wheels go 
idly round; it moves something, it accomplishes 
something, it produces something. Faraday says 
that there is electricity enough in a drop of dew 
to rend a rock in pieces; so in the weakest saint 
who has received the Spirit there slumbers power 
sufficient to perform works, of the possibility of 
which he may never have dreamed; works which 
cannot be explained apart from the divine power 
working through him; works regarding which 
an onlooking world will be forced to say: “ These 
are the works of Christ!” Andif His works are 
multiplied before the eyes of men, how can they 
doubt that He still lives in the world? 

The works which are the characteristic feature 
of this age; the works which are ina peculiar 
and special sense the works of Christ; the works 
which are the witness of the Spirit’s presence, 
and the product of His power, are spiritual works. 
“ Greater works than these shall ye do, because I 
go to the Father” (John xiv. 12), said Jesus to 


235 


After Pentecost, What? 


His disciples as they wondered at the miracles 
which their eyes beheld. It is not meant that 
they were todo mightier works of physical power 
than healing the sick or raising the dead, but that 
they were to do works greater in kind. They 
were to do spiritual works. And to secure for 
them the greater power which was to enable them 
to do these greater works, Jesus went to the 
Father. To produce spiritual miracles a higher 
kind of power is demanded than to produce phys- 
ical miracles; and in this spiritual age, when 
everything connected with religion is estimated 
according to its spiritual value, spiritual works 
form the only evidence that will be received by 
many in support of Christianity’s transcendent 
claims. 

In every age there are, however, those who 
will not believe except they see signs and won- 
ders. For the main evidence of Christ’s power 
they turn to physical works; for proof of His 
power in the spiritual realm they turn to His 
power in the physical realm; for proof that He 
has power on earth to forgive sin, they turn to 
His power to say to the sick of the palsy, “ Arise, 
take up your bed and walk.” They forget that 
the ground of evidence has shifted; and that now 
Christianity rests upon a spiritual basis and not 
upon external proofs; and that hence the evidence 


236 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


of Christ’s power to heal disease is found in His 
power to save from sin. And surely spiritual 
evidence—evidence that is verified in conscious 
experience—is more satisfactory than any dis- 
play of miraculous power. 

The question as to whether the miraculous 
power possessed by the apostles and their im- 
mediate successors was designed to be a gen- 
eral and abiding possession of the people of 
Christ, is one of the burning questions of the 
present hour. The commission originally given 
to the apostles, “Heal the sick, cleanse the 
lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons” (Mark 
x. 8), was afterwards enlarged in its scope so as 
to include ordinary Christians. “These signs 
shall follow them that believe: In My name shall 
they cast out demons; they shall speak with new 
tongues; they shall take upserpents; and if they 
drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; 
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall 
recover.” (Mark xvi. 17, 18.) But there. is 
nothing to show that all “these signs” followed 
any one among those who believed, or that some 
of these signs followed all who believed. The 
gift of power was differentiated. Miraculous 
power was not given toall. It was given for 
official service, or to certify that its possessor 
was the vehicle of a supernatural revelation. 


237 


After Pentecost, What? 


“These signs” certainly do not follow all who 
believe in the present day. Everything goes to 
show that they ceased about the time of the clos- 
ing of the canon of Scripture. The affirmation 
that they can be traced down the Christian age 
for two hundred and fifty years has very shadowy 
evidence to sustain it. Presumably they were 
continued as long as they were needed. They 
were not suddenly withdrawn, but gradually faded 
out and disappeared as the reason for their mani- 
festation passed away. ‘That they have beena 
permanent feature of the age of the Spirit no one 
will assert; the most that is claimed is that they 
have often run underground for a time, to reap- 
pear in unexpected places; and that when absent 
they have been kept in abeyance from lack of 
faith. The only form of miraculous power to 
which any serious claim has been made in the 
present day is power to heal; but why that par- 
ticular form of power should alone be restored has 
never been satisfactorily explained. That works 
of healing have occasionally taken place through- 
out the Christian centuries admits of no denial. 
That in the present day there are many well au- 
thenticated instances of instantaneous and com- 
plete deliverance from bodily infirmity is also be- 
yond dispute. And what at first seems to com- 
plicate matters, although it really simplifies them, 


238 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


is the undeniable fact that similar beneficial re- 
sults are to be found in connection with very dis- 
similar remedial methods. Divine healing, faith 
cure, christian science, metaphysical healing, 
hypnotism, and the like, have substantially the 
same credentials to show. They can point to the 
same class of cases in evidence of their power to 
heal. There must, therefore, be some common 
law underlying them all. That common law is 
unquestionably the law of therapeutic sugges- 
tion,* by which, through the subtle action and 
interaction of mind upon mind, one person can 
convey to another health-giving suggestion and 
impulse. Along the line of this law the Holy 
Spirit is continually working as a power which 
makes for health. He is the primal source of all 
therapeutic power. The initial therapeutic im- 
pulse isfrom Him. There is no real case of heal- 
ing of which He is not the author. The forces 
which He keeps in operation for the renewing of 
the life of man work according to fixed laws, and 
those who co-operate with them are blessed, while 
those who work against them suffer loss. Laws 
are not, however, chains by which He is bound; 
they are merely the ascertained limits within 
which He works. To every one who brings 


himself into right relation to His laws, He in- 


TSS 7, FES ES SE RCT. SSF SEES CHS Ee Pe SL SAE TL ESE BET CEE SE 
*See an excellent discussion of this subject in ‘‘Psychic Phenom- 
ena," by Thomson Jay Hudson. 


239 


After Pentecost, What? 


stantly responds, even although there may be the 
grossest ignorance of the way in which His laws 
operate. Just as a man who knows nothing and 
cares nothing about God, if he does a righteous 
act, is blessed in his deed; so a man who is 
steeped in ignorance and superstition, if he obeys 
therapeutic law, receives the Spirit’s healing touch. 
The Spirit of health is not unwilling to work be- 
cause He is not understood or acknowledged. He 
responds to the blinded devotee who bows before 
the shrine of the Virgin Mary,or before the shrine 
of some medieval saint of shady reputation; or 
the modern “ faddist,” who puts himself with 
sublime credulity into the hands of some self-ap- 
pointed priestess of the occult. The one thing 
needful to secure His health-giving power 1s 
loyalty to the conditions which He has imposed. 
There is, however, nothing magical or miracu- 
lous in the way in which the result is reached. 
Divine power works in natural ways and it works 
for the good of all alike. To every man the door 
of psychic communication stands open, so that 
he can go for himself to the original source of 
life and power, and may in turn become the me- 
dium of the Spirit’s ministry in conveying help- 
ing, healing influences to others. 

Miracles of healing were performéd by Jesus 
sparingly and always for spiritual ends. All His 

240 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


miracles were altruistic. His main work on earth 
was not to heal men’s bodies, but to cure that in- 
ward malady of which all physical maladies are 
but the surface symptoms. The work which is 
par excellence the work of Christ; the work to 
which everything else was made subservient; the 
work which the Holy Spirit is now seeking to 
have done; the work to which the people of God 
are specially called, and for which they are espe- 
cially qualified, is the work of delivering men 
from the dominion of sin. Deliverance from 
sickness and from other of the ills of life often 
follows as a result from that; but not always. 
The physical sufferings under which we groan 
may have some spiritual end to serve; they may 
be the divinely administered medicine of the soul 
—in which case they are not removed until their 
work is done. Paul had to leave Trophimus sick 
at Miletus (2 Tim. iv. 20), not because he had 
lost the power to heal, but because the Lord saw 
that it was best for Trophimus that for a season 
he should be shut out from the world, and shut 
in with Himself. 

The change which has taken place in the nat- 
ural sphere in the way of bringing physical forces 
under the control of natural law, is analogous to 
the change which has taken place in the Spiritual 
sphere in the way of bringing spiritual forces 

241 


After Pentecost, What? 


under the control of spiritual law. In neither 
sphere has there been any loss. The power 
that gave life to dead bodies and to dead 
souls in apostolic times is working immediately 
in the world to-day; but it is working in harmony 
with orderly laws. There occur no startling 
eruptions of power, awakening sense-bound souls 
from their leaden dreams. Medical science, by 
discovering natural laws and co-operating with 
them, is expelling disease, and lengthening the 
average of human life; and Christian science, 
truly so called, by studying the Spirit’s ways and 
working in harmony with His laws, is gradually 
conquering the powers of evil, and transforming 
the life of man. Pentecostal scenes, when thou- 
sands of souls are born anew in a day, may not 
be repeated, but there is a gradual growth of the 
kingdom of righteousness through the leavening 
power of the gospel of Christ. And this is what 
we ought to expect. For is not this the normal 
line of development? Does not the activity which 
at the first is spasmodic and fitful, become, as in- 
telligence and power increase, uniform and steady? 
Does not the spectacular display of the miracu- 
lous naturally pass over into the steady flow of 
the supernatural? And is not all Christian work 
taken at once out of the region of the special and 
extraordinary and placed where it ought to be, in 
242 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


the region of the supernatural and the common, 
when all the power which the Spirit ministers is 
looked upon as under the dominion of law? 

The power which Christians need, to enable 
them to do the work of Christ, is given to them 
up to the measure of individual dependence. 
Those who keep in unbroken communication 
with the Spirit of God are like storage batteries 
constantly replenished from the fountain of dy- 
namic energy, and are “ready unto every good 
work.” Their constantly renewed spiritual life 
brings forth a constant crop of spiritual works; 
their living faith, which the Spirit sustains, is 
never alone, but has a constant procession of good 
deeds following in itstrain. But let their attach- 
ment to the source of power be loosened, let their 
souls become the cemeteries of a dead faith, and 
good works cease. When Christians decline in 
spiritual power, no matter what advancement 
they may make in other directions, the spiritual 
fruitage of their lives becomes scanty and poor. 
And when the church declines in spiritual power, 
no matter how much she may increase in wealth 
and numbers, she ceases to be a blessing to the 
world. Pope Innocent III. pointed Thomas Aqui- 
nas to the wealth and magnificence of the Vati- 
can, remarking, “The time is gone when the 
church has to say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’ ” 


243 


After Pentecost, What? 


“Yes, your holiness,” he answered, “and no 
more can she say, ‘Rise up and walk.’ ” There are 
better things than silver and gold. ‘The best 
gifts which Christianity has to bestow are spirit- 
ual. And the main evidence of usefulness in the 
individual Christian or in the church collective 
is the possession of power to comfort and help 
the physically disabled, and to make the spirit- 
ually lame and impotent strong to walk in the 
way of righteousness. 

What sublime faith in the Spirit’s power Christ 
has shown in entrusting to its silent working the 
future of His redemptive work; and what sub- 
lime faith He has also shown in the human agency 
to which the Spirit has entrusted the work for 
the fulfillment of which He has become responsi- 
ble! Having “offered one sacrifice for sins for- 
ever,” Christ sat down onthe right nand of God, 
“from henceforth expecting till His enemies be 
made His footstool.” (Heb. x. 12, 13.) Know- 
ing that His perfect sacrifice, which does not re- 
quire to be repeated, has in it the power of moral 
omnipotence, He sat down in the place of supreme 
majesty, calmly waiting until the powers of evil 
should be vanquished. ‘The ultimate triumph of 
His cause He never doubted. Upon what did 
He base His great expectations? Upon the fidel- 
ity and efficiency with which those whom the 


244 


The Production of Spiritual Works. 


Spirit employs as His subordinates would hold 
up to the world His puissant cross. On the 
Spirit’s part there is no possibility of failure. 
The uncertain factor is not His co-operation with 
Christians, but their co-operation with Him. 
The only thing that can delay the realization of 
Christ’s expectations is the failure of those upon 
whom the Spirit depends. The Spirit does the 
best that He can with the weak and imperfect 
forces at His command. Sore at heart He must 
often be to witness the dilatory and indifferent 
way in which those who ought to be the right 
arm of His strength, do their part of the work. 
We speak of honoring the Holy Spirit as if His 
honor depended upon outward recognition. He 
is honored when Christ is honored; and Christ 
is honored when, by application of His atoning 
work to the hearts of men, those who once were 
foes are brought in submission to His feet, and 
are bound to Him forever in the vassalage of 
love. When that result is gained the Holy Spirit 
sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied. 


245 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE FORMATION OF A SPIRITUAL SOCIETY. 


“The day of Pentecost witnessed a kind of incarnation 
of the third person of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit 
came then to dwell in the body of believers, so that each 
Christian is now the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the 
whole church is the habitation of God through the Spi: it.” 

A. J. Gorpon. 

THE most tangible result of the outpouring of 
the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was the forma- 
tion of a new society. That new society is the 
Christian church. Cardinal Manning occupies 
safe ground in asserting that the coming of the 
Spirit was “the condition of the creation, quick- 
ening and organization of the church.”* As an 
idea and an ideal the church existed before; ¢hen 
it became areality. The church—the true, living 
church of Christ—was born of the Spirit; alas, 
what a very different parentage many so-called 
Christian churches would have to acknowledge! 
What has kept back single churches from adopt- 
ing the name “ The Church of the Holy Spirit,” 
if not the uncomfortable consciousness that the 
name would be incongruous because of the diffi- 
culty of tracing the mother’s lineaments in her 
reputed child? “The Church of the Holy Spirit” 


*«“The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost,”’ Pp. 40. 


246 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


would be a hard name to live up to. And yet is 
not every true church suggestive of that name; 
for is it not the creation of the Spirit, His abid- 
ing home, the organ of His manifestation, and 
the agency through which He operates? In the 
most ancient of Christian creeds the two confes- 
sions, “I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy 
Catholic Church,” have been wisely united, to 
emphasize the idea that the Holy Spirit and the 
holy Catholic Church are the two sides of one 
reality; and they have been put in their proper 
order, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is the source 
of support of the church’s life, and the church 
the witness of the Spirit’s indwelling presence. 

1. Zhe foly Spirit ts the soul of the church. 
He is the breath of life by which it is animated 
and sustained. As the soul of the church He is 
the structural force which gives to its doctrine, 
polity and institutional life outward form, as 
the brain gives outward form to the skull. 
“The Burial Hill Declaration” is unquestion- 
ably right in its contention that ‘‘the church 
is not a closely jointed, ironclad system; but a 
living body which has God’s indwelling to shape 
it, and God’s inworking to control it.” Men 
speak of organizing churches; living churches 
are not organized, they are born. Strictly speak- 
ing, they are not organizations at all, but living 


2447 


After Pentecost, What? 


organisms through which flows the warm life 
blood of the Holy Spirit. Organizations may 
exist without life; organisms proceed from life; 
they are sustained by life; they grow by the in- 
crease of life. A church that is not indwelt by 
the Spirit is like an empty shell which the waves 
have cast upon the shore—the memorial of de- 
parted life. 

The question of greatest moment concerning 
any church is: “Is ¢zs a church of the Spirit? 
Is it Spirit-born? Is it a Spirit-bearing body?” 
How foolish it is for any church to make the 
claim of being fe church as against all other 
churches by trying to trace an unbroken succes- 
sion of offices and ordinances back to the apostles! 
Such a church has become entangled in “ endless 
genealogies which engender strife.” The only 
thing worthy of concern is whether or not a 
church possesses spiritual identity. Has it the 
apostolic spirit? Has it apostolic zeal and holi- 
ness? Has it the marks of the original Spirit- 
born and Spirit-bearing church? Is it bringing 
forth the same kind of fruit? A church of the 
Spirit, a church in which the Spirit’s life and 
love and power are embodied, is not only in the 
line of apostolic succession, but has the same direct, 
divine origin as the apostolic church itself. 

2. Lhe Holy Spirit ts the Administrator of 

248 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


the church. Into His hands the entire govern- 
ment of the church has been committed. Through 
His spiritual rule, which marks the change from 
a visible to an invisible administration, the head- 
ship of Christ over the church is being realized. 
He is “the vicar of Christ.” But think’ of a 
puny mortal arrogating to himself that title! “A 
vicar of the Holy Spirit” would be an admissi- 
ble title, provided, of course, the one assuming 
it was His true representative. All the office- 
bearers of the church are overseers under Him. 
Addressing the elders of Ephesus, Paul said: 
“Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock 
over the which the Holy Spirit hath made you 
bishops, to feed the church of God.” (Acts xx. 
28.) The first appointment of evangelists is thus 
recorded: ‘The Holy Spirit said, Separate me 
Barnabas and Saul to the work whereunto I have 
called them.” “So they, being sent forth by the 
Holy Spirit, departed unto Seleucia.” (Acts xiii. 
2-4.) When delicate questions came up touching 
the policy to be pursued in missionary work, so 
certain were the early disciples that they were 
following the Spirit’s counsel that they could say, 
“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” to 
take this step. They did not lean upon their own 
wisdom; they were not swayed by prudential 
considerations, but having prayed as well as de- 
249 


After Pentecost, What? 


liberated, they came to know the Spirit’s mind, 
and followed it without misgiving. 

When the presiding Spirit is distrusted or ig- 
nored the church is forced to lean upon an arm 
of flesh. She allies herself to the state; or she 
tries to become a kingdom of this world by build- 
ing up astrong ecclesiastical system, fashioned 
generally after some political model. To guard 
herself against disorder she governs herself from 
without, instead of allowing herself to be gov- 
erned from within. And what is the result? In- 
stead of being the living organ of the Holy Spirit 
she becomes a huge ecclesiastical machine, con- 
trolled by worldly forces. Any immunity from 
disorder that may be secured is purchased at the 
destruction of life. To gain the world she has 
lost her soul. 

The spiritual standing of a church is deter- 
mined by its relation to the Holy Spirit. Has it 
an immediate sense of His indwelling? Does it 
listen to His voice as He has spoken in the Word 
and is now speaking within the soul? Does 
it look upon things from His point of view? 
Does it recognize His authority as supreme? 
Is it under His control? Is it ready to follow 
His guidance as it is ready formally to seek it? 
Is it as careful to recognize the rights of the Head 
of thechurch, for whom He acts, as it is to assert 

250 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


its own rights? Is the liberty which it seeks lib- 
erty to do what He enjoins? Is it in all things 
submissive to His sovereign will? A church 
that will not stand this test—a church that is self- 
governed, and not Spirit-governed—is no true 
church of Christ. 7 

3. The Holy Spirit ts the vital bond of frater- 
nal fellowship within the church. The society 
which He creates and controls is not a hierarchy, 
but a brotherhood, the closest and most compre- 
hensive of any on earth. Its members are not 
held together in an artificial way by oaths aud 
pledges, but by a common relationship of life and 
love. Its underlying motive is not a remunera- 
tive exchange of benefits, but an unselfish desire 
to confer benefits ; its cementing power is not self- 
interest, but the blood of sacrifice. 

Upon the two poles of home and church every 
rightly adjusted life revolves. In the home man 
finds the sphere of that unselfish ministry which 
he requires continually to exercise to save him 
from dying of the dry-rot of selfishness; and 
there also he finds, or ought to find, the fellowship 
for which, as a social being, he instinctively 
yearns; in the church he finds the sphere of those 
higher ministries which his spiritual nature needs 
to save it from being choked by the debris of 
worldliness; and there also he finds, or ought to 

251 


After Pentecost, What? 


find, the fellowship for which,as a spiritual being, 
he instinctively yearns. There is something 
radically wrong when he is forced to go outside 
of the home for social sympathy, or outside of 
the church for spiritual fellowship and help. In 
these two homes—the social home, and the spirit- 
ual home—he ought to find something of that lov- 
ing community of interest, the fullness of which 
is heaven. 

Christianity isa social religion. The spirit of 
sociability is one of its marked characteristics. 
Hence one of the main elements of power ina 
Christian church is found in the cultivation of its 
social influence. It ought to aim to be the center 
of the social life of the community in which it is 
planted. Alive to the importance of its social 
mission, the modern church seeks to foster the so- 
cial spirit; but alas, it too often makes the pitiful 
mistake of attempting to create social life by that 
which should express it. It builds kitchens and 
parlors while it neglects the prayer meeting. It 
socializes the spiritual when it ought to spiritual- 
ize the social. It cultivates the social spirit on 
the wrong side, ministering tothe physical when 
it ought to minister to the spiritual. The social 
nature of man can be most deeply moved on the 
spiritual side. The true way to socialize the 
church is to spiritualize it. Mrs. Stowe, in her 

25,2 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


“Old Town Folks,” observes that in New Eng- 

land a genuine revival of religion always awak- 
ens a social spirit, under the influence of which 
class distinctions melt away, estrangements are 
healed, and an atmosphere of good will pervades 
the community. Those who receive the Holy 
Spirit have one heart. His love binds them to- 
gether in spiritual fellowship. They form a 
brotherhood of the Spirit, the members of which 
are dear to one another for the same reason that 
they are dear to Christ. A single touch of the 
Holy Spirit will do more to promote true socia- 
bility than all the social attractions the church 
can devise. 

4. The Holy Spirit ts the source of spiritual 
unity in the church. We isthe power of God 
unto spiritual unification--the power by which 
those who differ in temperament, tastes, and opin- 
ions are welded into one. The triumphs of di- 
vine grace are never more clearly manifested than 
when those who are naturally repellant to one 
another “are builded together into a habitation of 
God in the Spirit.” 

No graver mistake could be made than that of 
seeking union in things external. The external 
divides; the spiritual alone unites. Christians 
are not held together by the iron hoop of the ex- 
ternal, but by the power of a common indwelling 


25) 


After Pentecost, What? 


life; they separate upon creeds, and ceremonies, 
and ecclesiastical polity, but unite upon what is 
spiritual, vital, and imperishable. Vain has been 
every effort to crystallize the life of the church 
around doctrinal, ceremonial, or ecclesiastical 
centers. The very things which were expected 
to have a cementing power have split the solid 
rock of her strength into innumerable fragments. 
Even the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which 
was meant to be a bond of universal fellowship, 
has been converted into a badge of sectarian sep- 
aration. To see union in things external is to 
seek the living among the dead. To gain exter- 
nal union when “the unity of the Spirit” is ab- 
sent is to gain the shadow and lose the sub- 
stance. True union is a thing of the spirit. A 
church is united when its members are spiritually 
one. “By one Spirit are all baptized into one 
body”; by one diffusive and pervasive life are all 
the children of the Spirit made organically one. 
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is union; 
but when the Spirit is absent there is disintegra- 
tion and decay; the dead members fall apart, and 
the body of Christ stands before the world maimed 
andimpotent. Before His departure Jesus prayed 
that His people might be one as He and the Father 
are one, that the world might believe in Him as 
the Sent of God; and it is to be noted that His 


254 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


prayer followed immediately after the promise of 
the coming of the Holy Spirit, as if to suggest 
that only by His indwelling could this spiritual 
oneness for which He prayed be realized. 

The careless printer who made the types read, 
“The Untied Presbyterian Church,” when they 
ought to have read, “The United Presbyterian 
Church,” unwittingly gave expression to what 
is too often true of churches belonging to the same 
denomination. They are uztied; or perchance 
they are tied together after the manner of that 
monstrosity in nature known as the king-rat, 
which is composed of several rats whose tails 
have grown together, so that while united at the 
extremities they are not unfrequently found look- 
ing and pulling in opposite directions. Denomi- 
national fellowship is rea] only when it is spirit- 
_ual. Brethren dwell together in unity only when 
they dwell together in the communion of the 
Holy Spirit. 

Very slow has the church been in learning the 
lesson of Pentecost, but she is learning it, and 
that is something. Comparing one generation 
with another, we see that there has been marked 
progress towards essential unity. We look back 
with wonder upon the time—not far remote— 
when Christians cut off each other’s heads, or 
burned each other at the stake because they dif- 


a Sie 


After Pentecost, What? 


fered from each other in opinion regarding cer- 
tain questions of doctrine. We have got heyond 
that; but will not coming generations look upon 
the present day with as great wonder, because 
Christians separate themselves from each other 
on account of difference of opinion? There is no 
surer sign that the Holy Spirit is gaining the day 
than that inter-denominational comity is on the 
increase. Schism is felt to be odious; and in- 
stead of being gloried in, it is apologized for. 
Christians are coming to dwell more upon points 
of agreement than upon points of difference; the 
conviction is growing that the essentials of Chris- 
tianity are the only things worth contending for. 
Old party war-cries that once divided the hosts 
into hostile camps fail to stir a single pulse-beat 
of enthusiasm. Sectarian rancorisdying. John 
Bunyan says that in his time there lived an un- 
lovely old gentleman named Mr. Bigotry. One 
day he fell and broke his leg, and there were peo- 
ple who wished that he had broken his neck. 
The old gentleman still lives, but he is not as 
robust as he once was, and there are those who 
prophesy that his days are numbered. When he 
dies there will be none to mourn his going. 
Incorporation may still be a long way off, but 
co-operation along practical lines has already, to 
some extent, come into sight. At the very time 


256 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


when political economy is grappling with the 
problem of co-operation in the production and 
distribution of material things, the church is 
grappling with the problem of co-operation in 
Christian work. It is felt that the wicked waste 
of power which has resulted from sectarian rivalry 
must come toa speedy end. Many of the divisions 
in the church were doubtless providential, and by 
emphasizing some neglected aspect of truth they 
served temporary ends; but their testimony being 
given, the reason for their separate existence has 
ceased. One thing is sure, progress in the future 
will not be made by division, but by union; and 
those who do anything to retard the tendency to 
union among Christians stand in the way of the 
Holy Spirit; for this movement: of the age to- 
wards the federation of Christian forces is mani- 
festly from Him. 

The outward union of all the churches into a 
colossal organization, by which individuality and 
freedom would inevitably be crushed out, is no 
part of the Spirit’s purpose. The spiritual unity 
which He is working to produce is consonant with 
the greatest possible diversity. It is not a weary 
monotone, but the harmonious blending of all the 
varying notes of a perfect symphony. Thank 
God, a touch of spiritual life makes dull uniform- 
ity a glorious impossibility, and unity in diversity 


asf 


After Pentecost, What? 


a glorious actuality. The forms of life are differ- 
ent, but the life itself is one; the waves are differ- 
ent, but the ocean is one; the branches are differ- 
ent, but the tree is one; the stars are different, but 
the planetary system is one; Christians are differ- 
ent, but their faith and love are one; churches are 
different, but their purpose of service is one. 
Christ has one body through which he is strug- 
gling to manifest Himself to the world; and that 
body becomes an efficient medium of expression 
just in so far as its widely separated members are 
animated by the same spirit, and work together 
for the accomplishment of the same design. The 
perfection of the church as the body of Christ is 
not attained in the perfection of each part individ- 
ually and separately, but in the perfection of the 
whole. All parts grow together, act together. 
When one member responds to the will of the 
Head, all the members are to respond with it; 
when one member performs its special function, 
all the member are to sustain it. In the unity of 
the parts is the unity of the whole; and the unity 
of the whole is in the unifying power of the Holy 
Spirit. 

5. Lhe Holy Spirit inspires the church with 
spiritual aims and activities. He fills her heart 
with Christ’s pity for lost souls, with His con- 
suming zeal for the things of the Father’s house, 


258 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


and with His aching desire to see the Father’s 
will done on earth as it is done in heaven. By 
kindling the noblest hopes and awakening the 
holiest ambitions He seeks to overcome the spirit- 
ual inertia which is apt to creep over souls encased 
in flesh. Disdaining to play upon surface mo- 
tives, He goes to the center of being, touching 
the deepest springs of action, and bringing into 
active operation the mightiest power in the unt- 
verse by which souls can be moved—the constrain- 
ing love of Christ. 

The ulterior end which the Spirit has in view 
in making the love of Christ the all-controlling 
power in Christian hearts is to bring the aims and 
activities of the church into oneness with those of 
the Master. The church exists for Christ. The 
body in which He abides, it is also the organ 
through which He works. By it His mission 
and ministry are executed. When in any meas- 
ure fulfilling its divine ideal it is a home of spirit- 
ual fellowship; a hospital where sick and wounded 
souls are nursed back to health; a school where 
those who have enrolled themselves as the disci- 
ples of Christ are instructed in doctrine and 
trained in righteousness; a temple of worship 
where the incense of praise and prayer ascend 
- continually to heaven; but more than all else, it is 
a radiating center of holy influences, a perennial 


259 


After Pentecost, What? 


fountain of beneficent saving power, a veritable 
spiritual Nile overflowing its banks and enrich- 
ing the moral life of the world. One of its most 
suggestive emblems is that of “the tree of life, 
which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yields 
her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree 
are for the healing of thenations.” By “the na- 
tions” are meant those beyond her pale. The 
church does something more than provide supplies 
for the delectation of the saints; she ministers to 
those who are without, she makes her life tell 
upon the world’s woes and wrongs, she heals up 
social sores by applying to them the medicinal 
leaves with which her branches are covered, she 
renovates and uplifts not single souls only, but 
the whole social mass, at the heart of which she 
has been placed. 

The church of to day is doing her best to wipe 
out the reproach of being unpractical. T’osecure 
the ends for which she exists, she is trying to find 
new working-points. She is fertile in resources, 
inventive in methods. One of her latest develop- 
ments is the Institutional Church, with its multi- 
farious agencies for helping those who have fallen 
by the wayside. Pervaded by the Spirit of God, 
the Institutional Church is a new form of the 
Pentecostal church; her temporal ministries flow 
from spiritual motives; and all her varied activi- 

260 


The Formation of a Spiritual Society. 


ties lead up to spiritual ends. But is it not possi- 
ble for the church to become too utilitarian? Is 
it not possible for her to expend her fund of en- 
ergy in material ministries and have none left for 
the performance of her spiritual functions? Is 
there not danger that the worship of God be ne- 
glected for the service of man; that the ministry 
of the Word be left in order that tables may be 
served; that a gospel of material comfort be sub- 
stituted for a gospel of righteousness; that the 
effort to save the whole man end in saving his 
body and forgetting to save his soul? It is true 
that the work of the church ought to be as wide 
as the work of Christ; but there are many things 
which the church can do more successfully 
through the ordinary channels of the community 
life, than by herself. No church can compass all 
the needs of humanity, and the first questions to 
be considered are: At what point is the main 
pressure to be put, and to what ends is the main 
stream of activity to be directed? 

Before the world the church stands as the ex- 
pression of a spiritual idea, the embodiment of a 
spiritual force. The degree of her usefulness is 
measured by her power to spiritualize mankind. 
“The weapons of her warfare are not carnal, but 
spiritual, and they are mighty through God to 
the pulling down of strongholds.” The more 

261 


After Pentecost, What? 


unworldly she is in her spirit and purposes, the 
greater is her influence over the world. She 
gains nothing by coming down to the world’s 
level, presenting outward attractions, sugar-coat- 
ing unpalatable truth, coaxing when she ought to 
command, and offering a crown of flowers when 
she ought to offer a crown of thorns. When she 
seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
ness, other things are added unto her. When all 
her aims and activities, inspired and directed by 
the Spirit, are steadily set to spiritual ends, she 
achieves her greatest triumphs on behalf of the 
cause of Christ, and does most to hasten on the 
day when her crucified Lord shall see of the trav- 
ail of His soul and be satisfied. The spiritual- 
ization of the church is an indispensable condition 
to the evangelization of the world. 


262 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE INAUGURATION OF SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS. 


“The Lord of the times is God, the turning point of 
the times is Christ; the true spirit of the times is the Holy 
Spirit.”’ F, R. Hasse. 


Tue ethnic religions are stagnant and station- 
ary. They suffer from arrested development. 
Their golden age of purity and power lies in 
the past. Any activity which they manifest is 
like that of a boy’s rocking horse-—motion with- 
out advancement. As distinguished from these 
immobile religions, Christianity is a religion of 
movement. It alone continues to make progress. 
Like the tides of the ocean it ebbs and flows, but 
every refluent wave gathers volume and energy, 
and when it turns, it comes sweeping in, covering 
former landmarks. Sometimes Christianity ad- 
vances by revolution, but its usual method is by 
evolution. Its appropriate figure is not the fall- 
ing avalanche, but the steady, slow-moving gla- 
cier, which plows a path through every obstacle, 
and gathers momentum as it advances. What 
Dante says of the movement of the human will 


can be said of the movement of Christianity. 


‘Tt rolls onward like a wheel, 
In even motion, by the Love impelled 
That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars,”"* 


*Paradise. Canto xxiii., line 133. 


263 


After Pentecost, What? 


In the poetic representation of the movements 
of God in history given in Ezekiel’s vision of 
the wheels, the idea set forth is that of never- 
resting motion directed by divine intelligence to 
a beneficent end. “The Spirit of the Living 
One” was in the wheels, propelling and guiding 
them. The rims of the wheels were “high and 
dreadful ;” their, diameter could not be measured ; 
and “they were full of eyes round about.” They 
moved “straight forward” with mighty sweep, 
crushing down everything that opposed them. 
Sometimes their speed slackened and they seemed 
about to stop, and anon they moved with acceler- 
ated action; but never did they deviate from their 
appointed course, or fail to reach their appointed 
end, for “ whither the Spirit was to go they went; 
they turned not when they went.” 

Here we are furnished with a striking picture 
of the progress of Christianity. All its move- 
ments have been under the direction of infinite 
wisdom; “the Spirit of the Living One” has been 
within the wheels; and while its progress has 
been by no means uniform, its course has not been 
described by a circle, but by a straight line. And 
yet, in spite of the lessons of the past, as we study 
the great age-movements in which we are caught, 
we tremblingly ask, “ Whither are they tending ?” 
A half-witted woman, sitting at her window over- 


264 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


looking a busy town, was wont to repeat the dole- 
ful cry, “Everything is moving, moving; and 
there’s nobody to manage the machine.” Is this 
the condition of things? All things are indeed 
moving; they are going somewhere; and the 
question of their direction will be determined by 
the power that controls them. If the age-move- 
ments that now confront us are under the direction 
of omniscient love, if “the Spirit of the Living 
One” is still within the wheels, then all things 
are moving on to their predestined goal. 

As the great World-Mover the Holy Spirit is 
ever at work. At creation’s birth “He moved 
upon the face of the waters,” bringing cosmos 
out of chaos;now He is moving upon the troubled 
waters of human life, that out of their weltering 
depths there may rise “a new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness.” The upward move- 
ments of this Christian age must not, in the 
thoughts of men, be separated from Him. There 
is a steady movement toward an ideal righteous- 
ness which cannot be satisfactorily explained 
apart from His direct agency. He is to 
be acknowledged and honored as the Unseen 
Power who is pushing the world along the up- 
ward path—as the originating and propelling 
power at the heart of every forward movement. 
The movements of reform born within the bosom 


265 


After Pentecost, What? 


of the church, and those for which she has been 
forced to seek a freer field outside her borders— 
such, for instance, as the temperance movement, 
and the anti-slavery movement—are to be traced 
to His inworking. They are parts of the great 
spiritual movement which He inaugurated at 
Pentecost. Reform movements have assumed 
various forms, but generally they have followed 
three distinct yet closely related lines. They have 
been philanthropic, social, and missionary. 

1. Philanthropic Movements. Within the 
heart of the church the Holy Spirit has awakened 
a spirit of philanthropy which flows out at the 
call of human need. This spirit of philanthropy 
has created as many ameliorating agencies as 
there are fields for their exercise. There is nota 
single human want that has not been searched 
out; there is not a single human woe for which 
' some remedy, more or less efficacious, has not 
been provided; there is not a single human 
wrong for which redress has not been eagerly 
sought. 

A thorough-going evolutionist like Professor 
Fiske, looking across the Christian centuries, sees 
that the social drift has been “towards the weak- 
ening of the power of selfishness, and the strength- 
ening of the power of sympathy”; but he is not 
careful to point out the evolutionary power which 


266 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


lies behind this evolutionary process. With clearer 
vision C. Loring Brace traces the growth of the 
spirit of humanity to “a new moral force” in hu- 
man life which appeared “at a certain era of the 
world’s history, not remote as compared with the 
duration of the race.”* It is not denied that be- 
fore this time there were sporadic signs of the 
brooding of the Spirit of goodness; but until 
then benevolence did not become an abiding prin- 
ciple of socialactivity. Inhissuggestive volume 
on “The Divine Origin of Christianity,” Dr. 
R. S. Storrs has shown that Christianity intro- 
duced a new conception of man, out of which has 
grown anew conception of duty. Man is looked 
upon as intrinsically precious, he is loved for his 
inherent value, and his good is sought because he 
is worth helping and saving. ‘The love of the 
divine in man has shown itself in greater tender- 
ness towards the weak and defenseless; greater 
solicitude for the betterment of the disinherited ; 
greater care for the poor and distressed; greater 
sympathy for sufferers from misfortune; greater 
interest in the defective classes, such as the deaf, 
the dumb, the blind, and the insane; greater op- 
position to slavery and war, and to every form of 
cruelty and oppression. Religious effort has come 
to concern itself with making the life of man 


*‘‘Gesta Christi, or a History of Humane Progress,’’ p. 1, 


267 


After Pentecost, What? 


upon this earth brighter for to-day, and fuller of 
hope for to-morrow. Religion has become per- 
ipatetic, it goes about, it has become practical, 
it goes about doing good, it has become constant 
in its beneficent activity, it goes about contzin- 
wally doing good. By the propulsive power ofa 
new affection it leads men to put their lives at the 
service of others.. It always stands ready to co- 
operate withallthe multiplied and ever multiply- 
ing agencies for good which mark our times,and 
which are manifestly inspired and directed by the 
Holy Spirit. 

A new significance is discovered in the con- 
stantly enlarging sphere of humanitarian work 
when it is seen to mirror forth the growing in- 
tensity with which the outleading and onleading 
Spirit is endeavoring to bring the church to fulfill 
her mission of brotherly ministry to a sin-stricken 
world. No complaint is more common in the 
modern church than this: “We are kept under 
continual stress and strain; there is no end to the 
demands made upon us; one agonizing appeal for 
help follows another; when one benevolent serv- 
ice is performed another awaits us.” The church 
cf to-day is being pressed as never before—of that 
there is no denial; but by whom? __ By the Holy 
Spirit. The voice of this living age is His. In 
every newly opened docr He presents a new in- 


268 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


vitation, in every forward movement a new in- 
centive to renewed toil and sacrifice. The de- 
mands of the hour are demands which He is mak- 
ing. When they are not met His heart is crushed 
with disappointment. 

2. Social Movements. The movements of 
social reform which characterize our times are 
not born altogether of social discontent. They 
have a deeper origin. They are at bottom spirit- 
ual movements, springing from a desire for bet- 
ter things begotten in the heart of the race by the 
Holy Spirit. When things have gone wrong and 
need reforming, no one can let them alone unless 
he first of all shuts his heart to the Spirit’s in- 
fluence. Every true Christian is an ordained re- 
former, working in the power of the Spirit for 
the regeneration of society. In whatever con- 
cerns the welfare of men he is concerned. Every 
new social condition presents to him a fresh prob- 
lem which he feels bound to understand and 
solve. He welcomes the widening of the sphere 
of social activity because it affords greater scope 
for the exercise of his most resourceful energies, 
and opens up new worlds for him to conquer. 
He rejoices in every sign of the weakening of 
the power of selfishness—the Lord of Misrule, 
and in the strengthening of the power of the 
Lord of Love, who through the agency of the 

| 269 


After Pentecost, What? 


Spirit is bringing in the reign of social righteous- 
ness and peace. 

In the present day the movement of the Spirit 
of God is seen in a sociological revival. A new 
interest in social questions has sprung up. The 
diseases that afflict society are studied as never 
before. There is a determination to know the 
worst. And, ifa revelation of the actual con- 
dition of society sometimes engenders a spirit of 
pessimism, it is a pessimism that quickens and 
not a pessimism that paralyzes; and that is better 
than an optimism that dozes and dreams. The 
prevailing feeling is one of hopefulness; and the 
most hopeful are those who have the most thor- 
ough knowledge of the difficulties of the situa- 
tion. With the present social order no one is 
satisfied. ~ Social perfection is still along way off. 
The present industrial system is especially felt to 
be unsatisfactory; although with all its faults it 
is better than any that has gone before. To vast 
multitudes it is a form of slavery slightly more 
refined than feudalism. The introduction of ma- 
chinery has brought about new conditions to 
which we have not yet become adjusted; labor- 
saving inventions have reduced the workman toa 
mere “hand”; the concentration of capital in syn- 
dicates and trusts has destroyed the sense of per- 
sonal responsibility, and has amassed enormous 

240 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


wealth by crushing honest competition into the 
ground. In the hearts of the disinherited there 
is growing bitterness. The times are full of un- 
rest. The air is electrical. Only in one way can 
revolution be averted, and that is by wise and 
timely reform. But, whether by evolution or by 
revolution, the better day when there shall be a 
more equitable distribution of the products of 
labor, will surely come. What the new order 
will be it is difficult to forecast; but “in all prob- 
ability some form of co-operation will be the final 
and Christian form in which production and dis- 
tribution will develop themselves when the inter- 
ests of consumer and dealer, of manufacturer and 
workman, of capitalist and laborer are correlative, 
and Christian and just principles govern all.”* 
The social movement of to-day is at heart altru- 
istic. Itis easy to show that selfishness abounds, 
that business is largely fratricidal, that politics 
are corrupt, that patriotism is openly sold for pelf 
and power; but it is just as easy to show that 
alongside the disintegrating power of selfishness 
there is a power in the world working for social 
redemption. Altruism is as real a force in the 
world’s life as egoism. The struggle for the 
lives of others is just as persistent as the struggle 
for self-existence. From the fountain of eter- 


*Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, p. 414. 
2471 


After Pentecost, What? 


nal love this altruistic spirit comes. Mothers are 
kind because God is. Was this altruistic spirit 
put into human nature at the beginning, or is it 
an “ultra rational” something which came into 
the world with historical Christianity? Pro- 
fessor Drummond takes the former view; Ben- 
jamin Kidd, the latter. There is truth in both 
views. The altruistic spirit which shows itself 
in the love of the animal for its offspring was 
sown in nature at the first, but not until its mani- 
festation in Bethlehem’s manger and on Calvary’s 
cross did it come to full fruitage in human na- 
ture. From the manifested love of Christ the altru- 
istic movement inaugurated at Pentecost derives 
its power. It is not, however, something excep- 
tional, but is in harmony with previous modes of 
divine activity. Itis the fulfillment of a time- 
long process of development. In Hebrew history 
we find an altruistic force at work moulding the 
nation’s institutions and laws and creating a holy 
society; and in the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost 
we see the same force breaking forth in the full- 
ness of its strength from the glorified Christ, that 
it might complete the work of subduing all things 
to the will of God, and building up a divine soci- 
ety on the earth. Christ descended to earth that 
He might fill some things; He ascended to heaven 
that He might fill 2/7 things. Through the 
272 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


Spirit He is now at work seeking to fill the world 
with His thoughts, with His ideals, and with 
His saving power; and in so far as He succeeds 
will society be reformed. In itself society has 
no recuperative power. The power that makes 
for social health is from Christ, the world’s great 
healer. The saving grace of society is His love. 
When His love is enthroned in the heart, men are 
led to sacrifice for the welfare of others as for 
their own, instead of sacrificing the welfare of 
others for their own; when His love is allowed 
to operate in society, bridges of communication 
are built across the gulf that separates the classes; 
when His love clarifies the vision of those who 
are locked in deadly strife, they each discern a 
brother in a foe, and strike hands in acknowledg- 
ment of a community of interests; when His 
love bears its legitimate fruit, the rights of a com- 
mon brotherhood are recognized and the glaring 
contrast between poverty and wealth gradually 
disappears; when professed Christians honestly 
endeavor to conform to His law of love in their 
relations to others, indifference to the welfare of a 
single human being is impossible, and all ground 
is taken away forthe complaint, “Our employer — 
prays for us on Sundays and preys on us the rest 
of the week ;” when a thoughtful, Christ-like love 
for others fills the hearts of men, reforming effort 


273 


After Pentecost, What? 


becomes preventive no less than remedial, con- 
cerning itself with the removal of the causes of 
future evils no less than with the removal of ex- 
isting evils—with the curing of the deep disease 
that afflicts humanity no less than with the sooth- 
ing of its present pains; in a word, when Christ’s 
love takes the world’s heart captive the social 
millennium willbe here. No more hopeful sign 
is found in the social sky than that Christ’s love 
is slowly but surely filling the life of the world. 
The world of to-day, just because it has more of 
Christ in it, is, despite its horrid cruelties, the 
most humane world the sun ever shone upon. 
Christ has not labored through the ages for 
naught, nor has He spent His strength in vain. 
He has produced deep and radical changes in the 
very structure of society. He is the moving 
power in all social reform. The wonderful re- 
forms which He has wrought in individual lives 
are prophetic of the reformation which He is 
working in society. He is not the Savior of in- 
dividuals only, but of the world in its totality. 
By His Spirit living and working in humanity 
He is doing a socializing work which is silently 
recreating the life of the world. 

But while it is at once admitted that the method 
of individualism has been greatly overworked, 
and that salvation is to be looked upon as some- 


274 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


thing more than an individual process, inasmuch 
as society is not a mass of unrelated units but a 
living organism, and the salvation of one of its 
members is like the healing of a gangrened limb 
which is poisoning the whole body; yet it must 
not be forgotten that inasmuch as all changé in 
society springs from change in the individual, 
there is no social salvation which is more than 
skin-deep that is not first of all a salvation of 
souls. It has become the fashion to say that we 
are not to save souls but to save men; but to save 
the soul is to save the man. By saving the soul 
the hidden springs of action that set all reforms 
in motion are touched. Dr. Bushnell cut to the 
core of the matter when he said, “ The soul of 
reformation is the reformation of the soul.” To 
make all things new, you must make all men 
new. 

3. Missionary Movements. The age of the 
Spirit is the age of missions. On the day of 
Pentecost the missionary spirit was born. All 
upon whom the Spirit fell were filled with “the 
power of a pneumatic enthusiasm.” They were 
seized with a burning desire to convert the world. 
Without waiting for fields to open, they opened 
them; without looking afar for congenial fields, 
they entered those that were nearest and neediest. 
The burden of the Lord was upon them to proclaim 


“at Be 


After Pentecost, What? 


the glad tidings of salvation to the ends of the 
earth. Filled with an operative conviction and 
inspired by a militant faith, they swept over 
land and sea, overturning pagan religions and 
bringing the nations to Immanuel’s feet. Per- 
secution was unavailing to daunt their ardor, 
or to check their onward march. Little did Cesar 
know of the power with which he was contend- 
ing when he said, “ We will soon make an end of 
Christianity; off with the heads of the Chris- 
tians.” Christian blood flowed like water; but 
the blood of martyrs proved to be the seed of the 
church. What could the swords of the brave Ro- 
man soldiers who had conquered the world do 
against a power as impalpable as air—a power 
that could penetrate the closely guarded walls of 
Cesar’s palace? In the heart of the church was 
a spirit of world-wide conquest which nothing 
could withstand. 

But a reaction came. Through doctrinal dis- 
sension, the development of ecclesiasticism, and 
the increase of worldly power the fire of mission- 
ary zeal, which had flamed to heaven, burned low, 
and the dark ages followed. The missionaries of 
that period were the monks and friars, who, amid 
dangers and privations manifold, penetrated the 
forests and swamps of central and northern Eu- 
rope, carrying to barbarous tribes the torch of 


276 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


evangelical truth. At length the reformation 
came, sending over the world a mighty wave of 
spiritual life; but not until the opening of the 
present century was the missionary spirit of Pen- 
tecost permanently revived, and the age of uni- 
versal missions brought in. Throughout this 
century the church has put the fullness of her 
strength into foreign missions. Of late the 
point of emphasis in Christian work has some- 
what changed, questions of industrial and _politi- 
cal economy pushing into the foreground the 
claims of those who suffer at our doors, and the 
mingling of the nations bringing foreign mission 
work into home mission fields; but woe betide 
the church if, recreant to her divine commission, 
she fails to “go into all the world and preach the 
gospel to the whole creation.” It is her duty to 
hold herself to aggressive gospel work as a dis- 
tinctive aim. Her motto is not “ Hold the fort,” 
but “Storm the fort!” “It is not enough,” says 
Canon Freemantle, “that religion should be 
merely capable of defense. It must lead and in- 
spire, or else it dies.” It is not enough that the 
church, like the herb “ whose seed is in itself,” 
possesses the power of self-propagation; besides 
perpetuating her own life she is to save the world. 
It is not enough that she strengthen her bulwarks 
against the assaults of the enemy ; she is to come 


277 


After Pentecost, What? 


out from behind her entrenchments and march 
courageously forward to the conquest of the 
world. 

In her missionary work the church is one with 
the Spirit. In one gospel call their voices blend. 
‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come”; the one 
speaking inwardly, the other outwardly,and both 
uniting in the same invitation to thirsty souls to 
“come and take of the water of life freely.” Fol- 
lowing the Spirit’s lead, the church is not to be 
content with bringing Christ to men, but it is to 
labor to bring men to Christ; not content with 
taking the things of Christ and holding them up 
before men for their emulation and imitation, she 
is to press them warmly upon their acceptance; 
not content with pointing to the remedy provided 
in Christ for sin, she is to strive to induce sinful 
souls to make personal application of it, that the 
atoning sacrifice of Calvary may become a saving 
influence in the lives of individual men, and in 
the larger life of the world. Nothing short of 
this can furnish a sufficient missionary aim, ora 
sufficient missionary motive. In the train of mis- 
sionary labors come schools and colleges, art and 
commerce, and all that is included in Christian 
civilization, but the central object and the domi- 
nating motive in all missionary effort is the sal- 
vation of men from the power of sin. 


278 


The Inauguration of Spiritual Movements. 


As this missionary age runs its glorious course 
a larger measure of missionary intelligence and 
zeal is constantly demanded by the Holy Spirit. 
The standard of enlightenment and consecration 
allowable in less privileged times is too low for 
the present. Wendell Phillips has said that “to 
be as good as our fathers we must be better than 
they.” The Holy Spirit has a right to expect 
greater things of the Christians of to-day with 
respect to the work of missions than He could rea- 
sonably have expected of the Christians of any 
former age; for before them is the accumulated 
experience of past missionary efforts, and behind 
them is the accumulated momentum of past mis- 
sionary movements. The Spirit is endeavoring 
to bring the church into line with the advancing 
purpose of God in the world. The church is 
sometimes blamed, and not unjustly, for not keep- 
ing in step with the progress of the age. The 


world is moving, and the church ought to move 


5? 
with it; but what is still more important is to see 
that the Holy Spirit is moving and that the church 
should keep pace with His onward march. There 
is no stopping place in the progress of the king- 
dom. Every forward movement is preparatory 
toa still larger one. The times are pregnant 
with destiny. The preparations for the coming 


of Christ in the flesh were not more marked than 


2719 


After Pentecost, What? 


are the preparations for the coming of some 
mighty spiritual movement in which the glories 
of the kingdom of righteousness shall culminate. 
There is “a sound of marching in the tops of the 
mulberry trees,” which is the signal for the 
church to bestir herself, and to follow the all- 
conquering Spirit who is going before her to 
lead her to victory. All the lines of providential 
opportunity are converging to the accomplishment 
of the world’s redemption. The barriers of race- 
prejudice are breaking down, sealed empires are 
opening up, and the ends of the earth are being 
brought together that “the door of faith may be 
opened to the nations.” The claims of men may 
not be more pressing than they have always 
been, but they have grown more clamorous; the 
Macedonian cry, “ Come over and help us,” may 
not be more urgent than it has always been, but 
it has grown multitudinous as the voice of many 
waters. In the claims of humanity may the 
church recognize the claims of her Lord, and in 
the cry of humanity the call of her Lord! 


280 


CHAPTER XVI. 
A SPIRITUAL KINGDOM. 


‘‘The task of the society which Christ founded is to bring 
about His universal dominion; it is to mike the kingdoms 
of the world to be kingdoms which are not of this world.” 

W. H. FREEMANTLE. 

AFTER Pentecost the church; through the 
church the kingdom. That is God’s order. The 
prophecy of the kingdom declared in the Old 
Testament and reaffirmed in the New, is, as Isaac 
Taylor has said, “the drum beat to which modern 
progress marches.” It is also the drum beat 
to which the church militant marches. The 
thing which the Holy Spirit seeks to realize 
through the co-operative activity of the church 
is the establishment of the spiritual rule of God 
upon the earth. The unceasing prayer of the 
church is, “Thy kingdom come”; and when the 
church offers that prayer intelligently, she looks 
for the coming of the kingdom, not by some dis- 
play of outward glory, but by the operation of 
forces already lodged within her heart, or placed 
within her reach. 

Christ is represented in the gospels as going 
into a far country “to receive for Himself a king- 
dom, and to return.” The kingdom is got while 


281 


After Pentecost, What? 


He is away; it is got by His going away; it is 
put into His possession by the Holy Spirit, whose 
coming is conditioned upon His going. The de- 
scent of the Spirit made the establishment of His 
kingdom possible; the continued presence of the 
Spirit makes its establishment certain. Were the 
Spirit to withdraw from the world there would 
be nothing to keep it from sinking into depths of 
darkness and sin from which there could be no 
recovery. His abiding presence and persevering 
effort are prophetic of the final victory of right- 
eousness ; they insure that ultimately there shall 
be a world in which Christ’s ideas and ideals 
have sovereign sway—a world in which the 
Savior of men is the Sovereign of men. 

1. The kingdom which the Spirit is now estab- 
lishing through the church isa sf¢rztual king- 
dom. As the history of the world is divided 
into two parts, before Christ and after Christ, so 
the history of the kingdom of God on the earth 
is divided into two parts, before Pentecost and 
after Pentecost. Before Pentecost the kingdom 
of God was outward and temporal. This was its 
Jewish form. The Jewish Messiah was nota 
spiritual king, but a world-ruler, the restorer of 
the Davidic dynasty. The Jewish Messianic 
hope was nota spiritual but a temporal kingdom; 
not the reign of righteousness, but of worldly 

282 


A Spiritual Kingdom. 


power; not restored souls, but a restored city ; not 
the triumph of spiritual ideas and principles, but 
the return of national glory and supremacy. In 
opposition to their preconceived ideas Jesus an- 
nounced that the kingdom of God was “not of 
this world,” but was a heavenly thing, a thing of 
the spirit, and that those only who were born of 
the Spirit could enter it. And when the people 
wonderingly inquired when the kingdom of God 
would appear, Jesus startled them by declaring, 
“The kingdom of God is among you.” It was 
already present, but in their blindness they did 
not see it,because, being a spiritual kingdom, it is 
spiritually discerned. It was hard for them to 
believe in a kingdom which came not with out- 
ward pomp and show; but not more hard than it 
has always been for sense-bound souls to believe 
in a kingdom whose king and court are out of 
sight. How difficult it was for Jesus to drill 
into the minds of His disciples the first con- 
ception of His kingdom as spiritual! As some 
one has pointed out, when He spoke to His dis- 
ciples of “the kingdom of heaven,” they empha- 
sized the word kixgdom, while He emphasized 
the word heaven. Almost to the last disputations 
would arise among them as to who should be the 
greatest in the visible kingdom which He was 
expected soon to set up. Not until after Pente- 


283 


After Pentecost, What? 


cost was the idea of a temporal kingdom finally 
abandoned. The coming of the Spirit was to 
the disciples the coming of the spiritual kingdom. 
When they knew Christ after the flesh no more, 
they knew His kingdom after the flesh no more. 
At the feet of an invisible king they prostrated 
themselves in loving submission; under the ban- 
ner of an invisible king they marched exultantly 
forth to the conquest of the world. 

The sphere of this spiritual kingdom is earth. 
Although not a fleshly kingdom, it is realized, as 
St. Ignatius has expressed it, “in flesh and in 
spirit.” Although not a kingdom of this world, 
it is a kingdom in this world. This distinction 
was but dimly discerned by St. Augustine in his 
“City of God.” When that great work was writ- 
ten the Visigoths had overrun Europe; Rome 
was sacked; the heathen faiths were crumbling 
to decay; thrones were tottering to their fall; and 
the kingdoms of the earth were shaken to their 
center. Looking upon the wreck of Rome, 
Jerome had mournfully asked, “ Who is safe when 
Rome falls?” To comfort God’s saints in the 
hour of darkness Augustine reminded them that 
the kingdom of God is eternal; that it is “a king- 
dom that cannot be moved.” 


“For not like kingdoms of the world 
Thy holy church, O God: 
Though earthquake shocks are threatening her, 


284 


A Spiritual Kingdom. 


And tempests are abroad; 
Unshaken as eternal hills, 
Immovable she stands, 
A mountain that shall fill the earth, 
A house not made with hands.” 


But the kingdom pictured by Augustine as out- 
lasting the ruin of Rome was not a new civic or- 
der to be realized here and now, but something 
which was to come in some other world, in the 
remote future. With clearer vision the apostle 
John at the close of his Revelation, in describing 
the final development of the kingdom, makes 
earth the scene of its glories. From a mountain 
great and high he is shown “the holy city Jeru- 
salem coming down out of heaven from God.” It 
is no city in the clouds that he sees, but a center 
of order and government established on the earth; 
he sees the regnancy of the principles of justice 
and love in human affairs; he sees heaven com- 
ing down to earth, and earth brought into har- 
mony with heaven. 

The establishment of the spiritual rule of God 
on the earth is the final end to which all the ac- 
tivities of the church are directed. She does not 
live for herself. She is an instrumentality rather 
than an end. Her business in this world is to 
bring in the kingdom. She is to seek self-en- 
largement only in so far as it may lead to the 
enlargement of the kingdom. Her great concern 
is not to save herself, but to save the world. In- 


285 


After Pentecost, What? 


stead of expending her energies in the effort to 
keep herself alive she is to expend her energies 
in giving life to a perishing world. The state- 
ment of Neander that “the church is the final aim 
which Christ proposes to his activity” ought to 
be changed into, ‘the £2zgdom is the final aim 
which Christ proposes to his activity.” And 
the final aim of Christ ought to be the final aim 
of the church. To establish the kingly rule of 
Christ upon earth, to bring in the better time of 
which men dream, the time when there will be 
no selfish struggle for supremacy, the time when 
order shall exist without tyranny and individual- 
ism without selfishness; to produce a new earth 
wherein dwelleth righteousness, by producing 
new men in whom dwelleth love, is the ultimate 
object of all her manifold ministrations. For that 
she unceasingly labors and prays; for that she 
freely expends her choicest treasure of men and 
means. The explanation of her untiring toil is 
found in her inborn purpose to destroy the king- 
dom of Satan, which is the kingdom of selfish- 
ness, and to set up the kingdom of Christ, which - 
is the kingdom of love. Dr. Julius Kaftan rightly 
regards the kingdom of God as “ the supreme good 
which the Christian religion offers to man,” and 
finds the value in the church tested by what she 
is doing to serve the purposes of this kingdom. 


286 


A Spiritual Kingdom. 


The method by which the church seeks to real- 
ize the kingdom is that of gradual permeation 
and not of violent separation. She is the vital 
germ from which the kingdom is built up, the 
seminal center around which the kingdom is con- 
structed. Working from within outwards, she 
gathers into herself everything that can be assimi- 
lated and made contributory to spiritual growth, 
until she becomes in her enlarging life a pro- 
phetic embodiment of the kingdom. As the 
Spirit’s agent she is to do the Spirit’s work in 
the Spirit’s way. She is to veil her presence and 
work out of sight as the Spirit is doing, “toiling 
like the roses under the night in silence, and ex- 
pecting no mortal applause.” She is to be will- 
ing to be denied recognition; she is to be ready 
to lose her life that she may find it again in the 
larger life of the world; she is to be the social 
solvent which loses its identity in uniting all the 
forces which make for social righteousness; she 
is to be the power behind the throne which com- 
bines and controls the world-forces around her, 
making them operate in harmony for the fruition 
of the purposes of God. Who ever gives the 
Holy Spirit credit for His work? And why 
should it be thought strange if the hidden work 
of the spiritual worker should pass unnoticed and 
unpraised? Isa servant to expect appreciation 


287 


After Pentecost, What? 


denied his Lord? Or is one who is sent to ex- 
pect honor denied to him that sent him? The 
best achievements are not those which bulk larg- 
est in the eyes of the world. Church statistics 
are often a delusion and asnare. ‘The finest and 
most far-reaching results are those which cannot 
be tabulated. In one aspect of its development 
the kingdom of heaven is like the mustard seed, 
which reveals itself openly, growing from an un- 
promising beginning to a tree of ample propor- 
tions; in another aspect it is like leaven, which 
works silently and secretly, moving through the 
meal from particle to particle, until the whole 
mass is leavened. Never is its progress that of 
the destructive cyclone, with ruined institutions 
in its track. When it sweeps away old, outworn 
institutions it is always that new institutions may 
take their places. When the temple fell the church 
rose. The church itself is temporal; the king- 
dom alone is eternal: Of the city of God St. 
John says, “I saw no temple therein, for the Lord 
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple 
thereof.” The church passes away when its 
work is done, but the kingdom unto which it 
melts endures forever. 

2. The spiritual kingdom which the Holy 
Spirit is establishing through the church isa 
universal kingdom. It is universal because it 1s 


288 


A Spiritual Kingdom. 


spiritual; for only to the spiritual does univer- 
sality belong. 

The gospel which Jesus preached was “the 
gospel of the kingdom,” the good news concern- 
ing the restoration of the world to the divine or- 
der, of which every sin is a violation; and al- 
though for atime He kept the founding of His 
church a profound secret, He well knew that be- 
fore the kingdom could come it was necessary 
that the church be instituted. The church is es- 
sential to the kingdom; it is the Spirit’s agency 
for accomplishing the redemption of humanity ; 
it is the elect society from which a regenerated 
humanity is to be developed. It is a mistake to 
regard the church as consisting of a chosen few 
to whom God’s grace is limited; it is rather the 
saved and saving remnant by which God’s pur- 
pose of universal salvation is to be wrought out. 
To say that the church is for the kingdom is an- 
other way of saying that the church is for hu- 
manity. 

Much confusion of thought exists regarding 
the relation of the church to the kingdom. The 
two terms, “church” and “kingdom,” are often 
used interchangeably; but although at certain 
points they overlap, a valid distinction always ex- 
ists between them. The kingdom is not, like the 
church, an outward organization with creeds and 


289 


After Pentecost, What? 


confessions for its passports of entry, and with 
rules and rituals for its inward administration, 
but an invisible spiritual empire composed of 
those who yield their hearts to the drawings of 
the divine Spirit, and follow His leading in their 
lives. What an edifice of error has been built 
upon the doctrine that there is salvation only in 
the church, when all that there is warrant for 
affirming is that there is salvation only in the 
kingdom! As compared with the church, “the 
kingdom is the larger category.”* Being wider 
than the church, it embraces many whom the 
church excludes. Partakers of the divine life 
constitute the kingdom, professed believers con- 
stitute the church; the kingdom is the inner do- 
minion of God over the heart, the church is an 
outward communion founded upon open confes- 
sion of Christ. As we now behold it, the church 
is the brotherhood of Christ; the spiritual family 
of which He is the head; the elect band of dis- 
ciples which He has gathered around Himself 
and bound together by the ties of mutual faith 
and love; the community of believing souls which 
He has called out of the world and chosen to be 
His representatives. As the Seer of Patmos be- 
holds it, the church has grown into the kingdom. 
Those redeemed out of the nations are constituted 


*“'The Kingdom of God,"’ Prof, A. B. Bruce, p. 264. 
290 


A Spiritual Kingdom. 


unto God “a kingdom and priests.” A perfect 
social state, in which the sovereignty of God is 
realized, has at length been reached. 

The church then, as it now exists, is something 
more than a standing witness to the constant in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit, in human souls and 
in human society. It is the pledge of a regener- 
ated humanity. It is a microcosm containing 
within itself the rudiments of a world-wide em- 
pire. Itis acircle withina circle; acitadel with- 
ina fortress; the grand metropolitan center of 
the kingdom, from which go forth the aggres- 
sive agencies which are to conquer the world, and 
bring it under the sway of the Prince of Peace; 
the nucleus of a new society embracing in its 
completed form the whole of humankind. In 
its present stage of development the church is a 
society gathered out of the world, in its ultimate 
stage of development it is the world gathered into 
a society; in the present stage of development it 
is the creating center of a universal kingdom, in 
its ultimate stage of development it is the univer- 
sal kingdom consummated by the transformation 
of the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom 
of our God and of His Christ. The church is 
destined to expand until she fills the world; then 
she will vanish from sight, being lost in the king- 
dom which she has created, as the seed is lost in 
the flower. 


291 


After Pentecost, What? 


That she may fulfill her mission of extending 
over all the earth the sovereign rule of the un- 
seen king before whom angels bow, the church 
‘5 filled with the fullnessof the Spirit. Suff- 
ciency of power is given unto her to enable her to 
overcome all antagonistic forces, to mould human 
institutions, to create a new social order, and to 
regenerate the moral life of the world. At her 
command are boundless resources which she dare 
not distrust. She sees abounding iniquity, but 
she sees also abounding fullness of grace flowing 
nto the world from the Spirit of God, sustaining 
and enlarging the life of man, filling the race 
with new possibilities and powers, and leading it 
on towards the realization of the lofty ideal after 
which it has been painfully struggling. Before 
her floats the open vision of “a kingdom that 
ruleth over all,” a vision that feeds her noblest 
hopes, inspires her highest achievements and 
causes her heart to burn with an unquenchable 
spirit of conquest, which nothing less than the 
subjection of the whole world to Christ will sat- 
isfy. At her best the church is full of faults,she 
has many a spot and wrinkle; yet the sublime 
purpose which she cherishes in her heart is intel- 
ligently, resolutely, and perseveringly pursued. 
An ideal church may nowhere be found, but a 
church with an ideal is found wherever there is a 


292 


A Spiritual Kingdom, 


church in which the Spirit dwells. In spite of 
all her failures to reach her ideal, the church re- 
mains glowingly optimistic. Hers is an auda- 
cious confidence, a serene hopefulness. She lives 
in wondering expectation of the great things 
which the Spirit of God will do next. She be- 
lieves that great events are struggling to the birth 
in the womb of the present. She “abounds in 
hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” 
(Rom. xv. 13.) As the Holy Spirit fills her life 
the never-failing hope which He empowers her to 
cherish grows from a feeble, flickering light, to 
a “light which shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day.” Going forth to the toilsome tasks 
of the present, she is “ by a vision splendid on her 
way attended”; through rents in her prison-house 
of clay she catches glimpses of the coming of the 
glory of the Lord; she sees waves of spiritual in- 
fluences sweeping in from the Infinite,and lapping 
all the shores of life; she sees the dream of an- 
cient Israel brought to fulfillment; she sees Pente- 
cost become a world-wide experience in the in- 
carnation of the Holy Spirit in the whole life of 
humanity; she sees the Man of Calvary at length 
become the acknowledged, as He is now the right- 
ful sovereign, of that moral empire which sweeps 
the circle of creation. 


293 


INDEX. 


PAGE. 
AvelarGs jousc.6ssess Seah e'were oe 32 
AIL OT aie crete aie oisisrd ceva opel che islets 82 
Altar, misuse of the term...... 53 
AltriitSin Origin OLoey sect. ce as 272 
INIDIDLOSC.ca mes vies auhaceinee aeuseias 215 
ASML] ccches steudios's sbaverasatercers 16, 63 
Anthony, St., vision of......°.. 48 
Anthropomorphism ........... 41 
Anointing of the Spirit......... 168 
Arcana Celestians.4... cuneate 
Arnold, Matthew........... 37, 112 
AtDADASTUS om meee ccs ereaier ae 228 
Avpustine cress tcc 7,44, 82, 284 
Authority, Spiritual............ 122 
—Compatible with freedom., 128 
—= RATION Aline. siteciitie seiela tease 132 
Aquinas, Phos i. tithe geen 243 
Baptism of the Spirit..... .... 210 
Baptist; 10nn the ...0a..esees 21 
Bengelccactcscccaicecilemus spe meey 
Bazaleel ei ee sen tecletactatclernra: 145 
Bible, anilluminated.......... 65 
Bible Commentary............. 201 
Blasphemy against the Holy 
SPICi Geeerie ese core eeacseres 207 
Blondel the French Minstrel... 22 
Brace sorine’ Co eus.. eg sO 751275 
Brownings Mrsice sexties eects ectel= 31 
Bruce, Prof. A. B.. . ..214, 223, 290 
Bunyan, John, on Bigotry...... 256 
Burial Hill Declaration........ 247 
Bushnell, Horace.......... 218, 275 
Chalmers, Dr. Thomas......... 108 
Charismata described......... 139 
Chillingworthiecce oa Sewanee 70 
Christa spiritual 21.7 )..42.6 166 


Christianity a social religion.. 
Christian Doctrine, by Dale... 33 


PAGE 

Christian priesthood........... 54 
Church, the; born of the Spirit. 247 
—Ruled by the Spirit........ 248 
—Has fellowship in the Spirit 251 
—United in the Spirit........ 253 
—Directed by the Spirit..... 257 
CICOLlOb2 fa0cchn coke entries eee 192 
City of God, Augustine’s....... 289 
Clemens, Bishop of Rome... . 43 


Comforter, meaning ofterm... 157 
Consummator, the Spirit as.... 200 
Conscience and Consciousness. 123 
Coyle’s, Dr. J.,‘‘The Holy Spir- 


it in Literature and Life.”’. 36 
Cyprian ® nase oe aeons pycer dst: 
Gyril of Jerusalems... a. seen . 139 
Dale, R. W ecTL est 
DANCES yets Narre oo tosis, cetentstereameretar 263 
DelitZsch 0.000% ssa 00 007 ae ee 
Donald, Geo. Mac...... a's ste is tremEOS 
Distributions of the Holy Spirit 137 
Dort, the Synod of 2.5 ...-2eee 160 
Drummond. Prof. Henry...157, 272 
Edwards, \Press. wes tai re fe 
Ellicott; Bishop..... sess een 
Emblems ofthe Spirit; fire 118 

=— W AteLrin, cciviejne% + wie.ole oateieae . I19 

mA GOVE): cis.c1s pe sclere ccs emmelemne ete 120 
EXMeELrSOnt cere on iet leicvelarse ateretenes 78, 137 
Erasmus soc). 5.5 sclsie's tee mies Sn LG 
Ethnic religions stationary.... 263 
Executive of Christ, the Spirit 

Coos ile caus die i oeteierspta meaner 230 
Ezekiel’s vision of the wheels. 264 
Faith -cure 20.2% .8 see ene 
Fairbairn’s Studies in the Phi- 

losophy of Religion and 

History,.0. 0% 50s soe erie eee 123 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

RAT MOAV Lune ee tt ere 235 
Fenelon, on the inward voice.. 174 
RANGE LP TeSottice cc sv da Saws 144 
—His experience ........ ... 221 
RIOR P PIOl te ee Secs cc lak. 266 
Fletcher of Madeley........... 86 
TPIS CARBO Sos ecbate bx sen tae c 608 62 
Fullness of the Spirit... ...... 88 
Freemantle, Canon... 277, 281 
SPigEA ees PITITUAL oi escs ccacs cess. 137 
BEMOLIRL Sten eee ce as Cer 142 
PeOpeClalized. -......6555 200. 145 
—Are means toends......... 150 
Gladstone's experience........ 37 
Ree EDILIUAL cee dis cae aekad +s 32 
CaMV Ath) occ avis 5 5 dee 246 
Gore, Canon.. sess; 0 LQQ 


Greek Rretiolsey, Alustraiion 


LAIN (eo PERE eal ge ote 109 
Grieving the Spirit............ 204 
Soe GWT OT ITILI ALS piu ahi sige hae LOS 
SORE hela oe agp a aE eee 64 


Hare’s Mission of the Comforter 14 


PIMEUAC Ie Gor. OS oknee Shs vbee ce 36 
BORGO IRE Ene caine eos eee be es 263 
Hezekiah, an idol-breaker..... 51 
FSIS ORT PL Ge ck foe ses rages ere 80 
Holiness, spiritual...... ...... 108 
TSUN OV HE a eee ea 112 
—Consists of wholeness, .... 116 
Hours with the Mystics, R. A. 
AME ATES ok wos alc ciste calotee 49 
PIO Ce TODM os gc ists Wee ve dcees 108 
Hudson, Thomson Jay......... 239 
PARA ACHOM oa er 2 eek 55 
FAS DOL BUN G's, stakes wate Wescecets 176 
PITT T ST iat apd 9 ager EE Sam Se eae 284 
Indwelling of the Spirit....... 196 
Influx of spiritual life........, 80 
Inscribing of the Spirit....... 186 
PRP RON eo a es Oe, 189 
—Wrongly located. 189 
—Always ppacivired' © Nerereteaists 190 


PAGE. 

—A perpetual fact and ex- 
perience,, sewtaa teatiney LOE 
Institutional Chores Princes cates 260 
Intercession of the Spirit...... 193 
IPENMBUS ss andy fees Eee Ole Ke 38 
JELOMOT 2. hve cece ee ree 284 
Jerusalem, destruction Ola. 52 
Kaftan} Draelulias, 7. eee. 286 
Keble}. iv: .c.0:sc eee eee 210 
Kidd; Benjamins..0s0-. eee 272 
Kingdom, a spiritual........... 281 
—Established by the church, 281 
Heavenly oer eusree aoers 283 
—=Harthly 7c Jotwats deter gees ead 
Universal. sco cnn aee 288 
LANIR Sie. cones eee eee ee 209 
Laws Williamoesavyscg eet ee 4 Se 
Leading of the Spirit.......... 175 
Life sSpititualees so 7 ee ees 
LUG Highest... 7000.00 eS 
=—ODITILRALLZOO sue ce eee 103 
Luthardt, C. Ernst . 5 aGh) 
Duther ys 70 3.0.2 9.4 m, ‘8a, 110, 160 
Lux Mund ic. teat dass cet ecO yet 00 
Lynch; Thos. 1? 5s .seares 108 
Man sanimMal ssc aosccsen ota tad 96 
—Natoralsc. os. on tee ence LO? 
ODT al soeene lounsk cane) 98 
Manning, Cardinal......... 173, 246 
Martin; Dice Wien nen scan nee 43 
Materialism, tendencytowards. 13 
—How to overcome,........., 99 
Matheson, (Geo... ccee taele ce 29 
MOV CT eta ener EEE Heevlsteens 82 
Mills, BaF ayouss pee cee 129 
Miracles of healing ........... 236 
Missionary Movements........ 275 
Msody;-D. La wireea as tee 192 
Movements, spiritual.... ..... 263 
Mozley,,Canon 7.7 -... seer te 64 
Napoleon on the Bible......... 66 
Neander.7 s2.. cic cont score ck 206 


ou 


INDEX. 


Nehusbtan. ies. 220 2 seen We sce Wot 
Wewton; ORM. 0 <cco) cece seisals 109 
Old Town Folks, Mrs. Stowe.. 252 
Operations, Spiritual........ oa 3$3 
COETE Clo ostet irerdainede coielenisale 63 
Osterzee, Vals .es caret 33, 153 
Paraclete, meaning of the term. 157 
Perougiay the dentreeesvek cues ato 
Pauline Theology............-- 114 
Pentecost, significance of...... Ir 
Personality of the Holy Spirit. 36 
Philanthropic movements..... 266 
Phillips, Wendell......... Bee IAS) 
PIRtO. Gases se pwenres os Seat Sees 48 
Power, Spiritualic:. .scnsses ee SLO 
=—=PEFSONAlIZEG acveseeclice Saree C2) 
== 1OWnO Dial ned csancencie sist 222 
Prayer, philosophy of......... 162 
Preacher, aseer .. ..... At orl) 
Progressive, the Spirit........ 69 
Protestantism, fundamental 
principleof...... sonecuoeen YL 
Psychic Phenomena, underly- 
INP AW:OL Gee sero ecccm eso 
Quenching the Spirit.......... 206 


Reformers on the infusion of 

CHESS Pititease ec esse 
Regenerating work of the Spirit 
Religion peripatetic........... 268 
Renewing of the Holy Spirit... 167 
Resisting of the Holy Spirit.... 202 


160 
159 


Return of Christ in the Spirit... 17 
Revelation progressive.... ... 89 
Ritualism, tendency to.... 49 
Ritschilian Theology........... 26 
Roman Catholic Church,claims 

OL Sea Sooe Bes beck tees lay. 
Rutherford, Samuel........... 144 
Salvation Army, the..... ..... 144 
Salvation by displacement.... 108 
Sanday, Prof., on Inspiration.. 190 


PAGE 
Scheffler, . i... 0s0cee0s a ok: . 167 
Seagrave, Riec.csane ede care o\soe ee ey 
Sealing of the Spirit........... 183 
Shakespeare \.../. i. c.sncees 112, 137 
Smeaton; Dr. \Geo.'-. 1. es eee 7 
Society,formation of a Spiritual 246 
Social Movements.......... 269, 271 
Sociological revival, a......... 270 
Socrates oosg iscsi ds ec ereates 178 
Spencer, Herbert........... Ape 2975: 
Spirit-filled life, a........ int aeee 
Storrsa isi Cees 367) 
Striving of the Sbinit <2 etaie pate 202 
Swedenbore so c5.c ccc cee eeues 73 
Teaching of the Twelve, the... 171 
Teaching of the Spirit......... 171 
Felepathy Wsernc- cee eser ee 77, 176 
Temporal Mission of the Holy 
GHOStUeteeee ace oar lanterns 246 
"FE ONNYSOM oi. 61d Sot cists oe eee 47 
Theology progressive.......... 67 
PhOUCK!. can jase's cde cere oe eon et eeO 
Thorburn, Bishops... sesneee 155 
Training of the Twelve....... . 214 
Tripartite nature of man...... 97 
Truth, spiritual apprehension 
OL 2 sda loiea.o Maciel cnet teerae 62 
Ubiquity of the Holy Spirit.... 44 
Unity of Christian experience. 84 
Universality of the Spirit’s op- 
erations? sii... eek eae eee 42 
United Presbyterians.......... 255 
Unto the Uttermost, ........... 205 
Wayland; Presa... sce. sane oa oe OS 
Whittier . : Apcncigo 8h?) 
Williams, ‘Sir Moniers sive eoontetate 57 
Witness of the Spirit.......... 179 
Works, production of spiritual. 228 
Worship, spirrtualy 2.2. ..<. cso 
—Tendency to formalityin... 50 


Xavier's prayer forenlargement 85 


296 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 


Chap. Page. 
GENESIS. 

NV Dea Sirtcrica sik o's sintece sana HOD ODOE 42 
EXODUS. 

PANIES OB Pe hycrernis wtreicnicles ste suns scores 145 
NUMBERS. 

UE ZO Seis tie Serna seis sittoe eee 6 75 
1 KINGS. 

oy. ENO MEa Ritshe sissies o'6, sfole'e tins 30-00) go 


1 CHRONICLES. 


OW Gh GB BUS SOA SOARES RIC ETAD 
JOB. 
PROMO De Outecincteievc cis BS eblane Ait 147 
PSALMS. 
DINETTE Mp T'S ete travc sie cs sie wiatere sors 120 
Geesicnn ss 5 . 235 
‘SIDS Fits Pain SReOBOn Sacer 45 
PROVERBS. 
XXIX. 18 SOs OGREaor 75 
ISAIAH. 
TMT een ees ads case woah tty . 169 
OTOL TS f 10s ca cto ss 4 219 
Tou lO pte. se cc clercicicte's'e 06's cues 42 
MICAH. 
10S F055. eR Sener enone Ser ey 
MALACHI, 
II. 15 EM cfeIB sr shsis! cloele ia'ate ave oie LZ, 
MATTHEW. 
UNE Sy negiod ao GRAAL On DONO CaA De 177 
ENGR COM Hole cies siercie «sive oibis eisiewiere'e'e 212 
NOM ee RS acicves sietieio ve steve elaiel ecle aievele 2 7, 
OMS TS 2S wok sos eee s'sic cost ss 32, 208 
DEM LL DReL Omi Qicsecuiee fers oe ces a4 
NOV DL Mee2O reese sirens cas c Secret. 18 
MARK, 
PDair otis Soclcae eles ate were nee 211 
ie pS Ob SIR OeOHmGEciomiace fpices 237 
DOV DEE TOee orks ees soe eee cies 237 
LUKE 
WD MAZE A ane Sete sl wv es's co cece 110 
MAURY hE Nisrcleiesicicis c cieisls ec ees cee 116 


Chap. Page. 
LVapr dtc tec dcssccerelices stromuce ar XO 
DVGR IB oe vic cclelersicis cleo act cio siete eeil7 
9 CRSA H Sadn Goan One aot CO Oe Le 
JOHN. 
) Fe FOOCIONDO GE 159 
L233 cogs noes as letete oi tiete s ceae . 210 
GRE. Geb esi 55 . 159 
LVSt23 cutee van cots ties satura hela coats 34 
LVN S32 re ccrcclleicrs chaste cieterscecatagis 47 
WATS 722 ss vio cts 6 sleeielastare: oreiete Apo ee? 
UV SEITZ este eo cctaiets wie creleemmers siacele's 235 
DG ANTE & eis SOR Ase cpu Ons: 201 
LV ALO er acai e eee ne camncies 69 
KV DeSirciro ec narssietes iene ststois croners 156 
EX Vilstel2s0 13 werieainae cticero moe setae . 69 
ACTS. 
| Bato TERA Se OAT GRO ee ee 124, 228 
BRC pi elh woulda donc Gene OOS ano Bade 21 
BB IRIS GB hehe eae en es A ae A 74 
hE Oa aan SA ASAP Rite Hie 229 
LI Shoe cio. seca elect ess 86, 185 
V LDS DS. atrste scheercisi stesatteisls oe 142, 203 
DS LASS Saheim ocicite ShGOGOHEABGHS eRrTO 
GUUS 0b Mish SS Ghen goomsoo base LS 
XX 2 auton waca cs evcistacions creis sek OS 
KNEE tae cents eciste sincldcese sient e4O 
ROMANS. 
Pid Socer cbs stals c.heiel Seisiole stessce’sieieiete 117 
DUS ees sac rccisatesise ie cers's Sonu Tey 
WALLIGE BPs crsriecreos cies To emrelsezale 159 
VADUG Us a oasooosa'stidd Seiten cictee IOX 
Wi DLE 3 aeee sisicieticts s clepieiepricinaiee ce 102 
NAGE Clean on isle cststeraiete ey ersieicis 176 
VEL Ta Giese iesiesrsieleteisreciesi sisi stcres 179 
WEEL 10204 hie ete pi een cee tees aloe 
\490 6 Pio Bespaduadcces cseueadoe 193 
1 CORINTHIANS. 
IV. 15 oct ee 103 
LVaerOrs St ote eects eee LOS 
WE BOP i aoccasidonudd cdac wean 199 


INDEX OF TEXTS. 


Chap. Page. 
1 CORINTHIANS.—Continued. 
ATIC Oot tac cea sao ace 139 
ALT eS SIT ccna scicieaie Mamet 139 
DV SATS foe vat eictaihe's estore eetneles 150 
2 CORINTHIANS. 

WG 2 Oe Rirele clone oe oie Hein eet aes eateets 183 
LIL Fo eos Secies stems ce dive siewes 187 
VL ERIS Snes eoetoc wate eles ies’ 28 
TV SIO eae ste netetele va bee cae s ctoteis 165 
NO te oe or ee oor 24 
PLL rays: on oe ce atte sternite des 138 
GALATIANS. 

LV GOR ices ot ae dee sone ie tite 182 
Wie 1G Seca seetre meio aoe crrcie rans 109 
EPHESIANS. 
| cE Se ern a tee ee eae . 184 
LIMIS eres ESAT ROSAS DIORA 59 
LITSIGHIOM GRE Poor cece eke Ap, ete 
TIVE Gorath settee mess coined 196 
TV GSN aS cok cic uiareis ome cramer 137 
EVitgOUe scenes cake nies ots hanleaes 204 
Vi teT8c cytaxe tele ite sreinionie teloecttcine 88 
PHILIPPIANS. 

LI 3 Sawa Sedo ocheeet ects re oe 102 
LIT Gr Se octertsere stra cece es 55 
1 THESSALONIANS. 

Vien TS ce torte ck eras fat Meuse eres tele 206 
2 THESSALONIANS. 

) ba PA teas ee Ne bebe Aarti SR GSE rk so 18 


Chap, Page. 
2 TIMOTHY. 

TET er0 ware : 192 
TVi8200e2 Reset é 240 
TITUS 
166 Gal tus RROD e eS S Agregar 119, 167 
PHILEMON. 
| in (0 PR RE eH RR Se cw: 163 
HEBREWS. 
bh peace © Gy: 
| 0. Cre eeirr eR oar cs oor Say, 
XU I2, UZ cc cet cents alice siete seers 244 
Gt LAA fois wis ole octe cre steiae ence an er: 
Ks 15, 167, ctor cere cece eae 122, 180 
RSV BO on sie oc da dace ws sie eee 205 
zx PETER 
1G 22 
1 UR Ce ACAD DOO LOS DO do - 18 
Tsii23}s exec, ate wanetereicae cles eae mee 164 
LL3 [IOS s FS. etins cules aeeotee S7 
TLD GIS em ctc sce es oats oi RA 35 9/ 
20 Ee re 
LiPQEe. Vath at ee eee eaves estametene 172 
1 JOHN 
|B Fe la Re PIA HEIRS Seise cic 169 
JUDE. 

TIO % sie stoi sicge oats Glee Coe 96 
) Be.) aR IRAE GAN banaue oc cic. 195 
REVELATION. 

ATL so be ceected sabe cnienraie eee 164 
MV sclSicen cues soseeeueen eueeos 


298 


~~ 
a 


